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The Bomb
  • Published: 30 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446449615
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416
Categories:

The Bomb

A Life



A PAGE-TURNING BIOGRAPHY OF MANKIND'S MOST TERRIFYING CREATION, THIS DISTURBS, AMUSES, ENLIGHTENS AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, MAKES YOU THINK TWICE' WORD

An extraordinary, compelling account of the life and times of the atom bomb, from one of the UK's leading historians.

Before the Bomb, there were simply 'bombs', lower case. But it was the twentieth century, one hundred years of almost incredible scientific progress, that saw the birth of the Bomb, the human race's most powerful and most destructive discovery.

In this magisterial and enthralling account, Gerard DeGroot gives us the life story of the Bomb, from its birth in the turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Siberia to unsettling maturity in test sites and missile silos all over the globe. By turns horrific, awe-inspiring and blackly comic, The Bomb is never less than compelling.

  • Published: 30 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446449615
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 416
Categories:

About the author

Gerard DeGroot

Born in California, Gerard DeGroot is Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. He has written ten books on various aspects of twentieth-century history, including The Bomb: A Life, a history of nuclear weapons which won the 2004 RUSI Westminster Medal for Military Literature. His next book, Dark Side of the Moon, about the American lunar quest, was published in February 2007. DeGroot contributes to most national newspapers both in Britain and in the USA, and he has been a regular columnist for Scotland on Sunday.

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Praise for The Bomb

'Thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and irradiated by a wry sense of humour...[this] biography of the bomb is absolutely gripping...Our sensibilities on this score have gone to sleep: this outstanding book ought to wake them up again with a very loud bang.'

A C Grayling, Literary Review

'The gripping story of the invention and building of the bomb, spiced with wartime strategic manoeuvring, scientific intrigues and espionage, has never been better told.'

Sunday Telegraph

'A timely account of mankind's most awful invention, wryly wrapped as a biography...A clever cocktail of reportage, analysis and anecdote from the physics of the bomb's conception to the B-movies it inspired.'

The Times

'I have read many books about different aspects of this enormous subject, but none that brings the diverse pieces together so well, in such an absorbing and truly masterful way.'

Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday

A page-turning biography of mankind's most terrifying creation. This disturbs, amuses, enlightens and, most importantly, makes you think twice

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