Really great book - a mix of the history of science and
technology with personalities and social-political forces. It reads like a
detective story with questions of morality raised but unanswered. The book is
long – 886 pages, but it is definitely worth the effort. I’ve collected a few
examples from the book that I really liked. I have not put them in quotes but
they all come straight from the book. In some cases I’ve added my footnotes to
help understand the selection.
I hope that someone writes a screen play around the
struggles that the emigrant scientists had with politicians and the military
when they tried to convey the potential of the atomic and later the
thermonuclear bombs, and their impacts on political systems.
This is a personal selection of excerpts that appealed to me
as I read the book. It’s by no means complete. For an excellent review, read
the New York Times book review, “The Men Who Made the Sun Rise” by William J.
Broad (http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/09/19/specials/rhodes-making.html)
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