The First War of Physics
Pegasus Books · Print & ebook · April 13, 2010
A History pick for readers exploring The First War of Physics.
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- Who it’s for
- Follow the fraught race toward the atomic bomb through science, secrecy, and hard questions about responsibility.
- Genres
- Nuclear Warfare, Nuclear Physics, World War II History
- Published
- Pegasus Books, April 13, 2010
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For younger readers: The War to End All Wars, What Was the Bombing of Hiroshima?, What Was World War I?
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An epic story of science and technology at the very limits of human understanding: the monumental race to build the first atomic weapons. Rich in personality, action, confrontation, and deception, The First War of Physics is the first fully realized popular account of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon.
Continue reading
The book draws on declassified material, such as MI6's Farm Hall transcripts, coded Soviet messages cracked by American cryptographers in the Venona project, and interpretations by Russian scholars of documents from the Soviet archives. Jim Baggott weaves these threads into a dramatic narrative that spans 10 historic years, from the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939 to the aftermath of "Joe-1", August 1949's first Soviet atomic bomb test. Why did physicists persist in developing the atomic bomb, despite the devastation that it could bring? Why, despite having a clear head start, did Hitler's physicists fail? Could the Soviets have developed the bomb without spies like Klaus Fuchs or Donald Maclean? Did the allies really plot to assassinate a key member of the German bomb program? Did the physicists knowingly inspire the arms race? The First War of Physics is a grand and frightening story of scientific ambition, intrigue, and genius: a tale barely believable as fiction, which just happens to be historical fact. Read more
Science Under Pressure
Follow the fraught race toward the atomic bomb through science, secrecy, and hard questions about responsibility.
Come here for
- The collision of scientific ambition, wartime urgency, and espionage
- A readable account of nuclear physics at its most consequential
Expect
- A ten-year historical sweep, from fission’s discovery to the first Soviet bomb test
- Personality, confrontation, and deception alongside scientific history
Where it sits
| World War II History | 74% |
|---|---|
| Nuclear Warfare | 66% |
| Nuclear Physics | 47% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Nuclear Warfare
- Nuclear Physics
- Authors
- Jim Baggott, Mark Ashby, Audible Studios
- Publisher
- Pegasus Books
- Published
- April 13, 2010
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Nuclear Warfare