Endorsements
"I was enthralled by these vivid and compelling accounts of personalities and events at Los Alamos and elsewhere that produced the Bomb, ended a World War, and transformed our lives forever."–Bruce Babbitt, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Governor of Arizona
"A remarkable collection of stories that vividly conveys the great drama surrounding the development of the atomic bomb....All the more compelling—and horrifying—placed in the full context of the scientific, military and moral questions they faced. –Jennet Conant, author of Tuxedo Park and 109 East Palace
The Manhattan Project resulted in the development and detonation of the first nuclear weapons—and changed the world forever. This authoritative book provides a vivid history of the Project and its legacy, told for the first time by the key players and observers.
Born out of a small research program begun in 1939, the Manhattan Project eventually employed more than 130,000 people, including our foremost scientists and thinkers, and cost nearly $2 billion—and it was operated under a shroud of absolute secrecy. This groundbreaking collection of documents, essays, articles, and excerpts from histories, biographies, plays, novels, letters, and the oral histories of key eyewitnesses is the freshest, most exhaustive exploration yet of the topic.
Compiled by experts at the Atomic Heritage Foundation, the book features first-hand material by Albert Einstein, Leslie Groves, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, Henry Stimson, and many others. Excerpts from literary, historic, and biographical works come from (among others) H.G. Wells, Joseph Kanon, Jennet Conant, Andrew Brown, Kai Bird, Michael Frayn, Robert Norris, and of course the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes, who also provides an informative introduction.
Dozens of photographs depict key moments and significant figures, and concise explanatory material accompanies each selection. The Project's aftermath and legacy are covered as well.
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