Here are 100 books that The Invention That Changed the World fans have personally recommended if you like
The Invention That Changed the World.
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I’ve always loved how science deepens my appreciation of nature and fills me with awe and wonder. I’ve been a science teacher, a documentary producer for National Geographic and Discovery, and the author of What's Gotten Into You: The Story of Your Body's Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night's Dinner. I’m astounded by how much scientists have been able to learn about how our world works and how they have revealed surprising and strange beauty. Their stories of wrestling with the unknown, marked by unexpected twists and great perseverance, captivate and inspire me.
I knew the Manhattan Project was big, but I never realized how immense it truly was. This book left me in awe of how scientists recognized and unleashed the power of the atom. Rhodes makes the technical details as compelling as the personalities and relationships he weaves into this sprawling saga.
My favorite character is Leo Szilard, who conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction while waiting at a traffic light. He secretly donated his patent on atomic chain reactions to the British government and convinced Einstein to co-sign a letter warning President Roosevelt about German efforts to develop the bomb. The stakes were incredibly high, and Rhodes' storytelling is masterful.
With a brand new introduction from the author, this is the complete story of how the bomb was developed. It is told in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan…
As a child, I was inspired by the feats of the first astronauts and cosmonauts, culminating with the Apollo expeditions to the Moon. As I grew up, I found that I was more of a historian than an engineer or a physicist. So, I began writing the stories of some of the people who were involved in the 1960s space race. I have since written about topics ranging from the strategic missiles that kicked off the space race to the Hubble Space Telescope, and today, I am the editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly.
As someone who loves biographies, I can think of few better books than this thorough and readable biography of the colorful and controversial figure who was a leading figure in World War II, the Cold War, and the race to the Moon, Wernher von Braun.
His amazing life saw him working with the likes of Adolf Hitler, Walt Disney, and President John F. Kennedy and took him from the depths of the Nazi war machine to the heights of celebrity in America.
Curator and space historian at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum delivers a brilliantly nuanced biography of controversial space pioneer Wernher von Braun.
Chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and one of the fathers of the U.S. space program, Wernher von Braun is a source of consistent fascination. Glorified as a visionary and vilified as a war criminal, he was a man of profound moral complexities, whose intelligence and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some would say, blinding ambition. Based on new sources, Neufeld's biography delivers a meticulously researched and authoritative portrait of the creator of…
I once had a history advisor in school whom I informed that I was studying history so I could write fiction better. I saw him cringe a bit at that. Even so, I think that history and fiction–and the mystery–go together well. I am always drawn by mystery dramas–and by the drama of real lives facing and unraveling their way through real events. Of course, that led to graduate studies in cultural and intellectual history, to many years of teaching literature, and to passionate reading of mystery novels. Sparkling fiction and strong narrative history, for me, continue to stimulate a sense of wonder at human experience and this incredible universe we live in.
A secret intelligence program with Nazi scientists is described in such colorful detail that this nonfiction book riveted my attention.
What was most compelling for me was the story of how these scientists and technological experts were utilized by American ingenuity. A fascinating and well-researched history book always holds my interest.
In the chaos following WWII, many of Germany's remaining resources were divvied up among allied forces. Some of the greatest spoils were the Third Reich's scientific minds--the minds that made their programs in aerospace and rocketry the best in the world. The United States secretly decided that the value of these former Nazis' forbidden knowledge outweighed their crimes, and the government formed a covert organization called Operation Paperclip to allow them to work without the knowledge of the American public.
Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, with access to German archival documents (including, notably, papers available…
A decade ago, we could not have imagined a world where democracy would be in existential crisis. Perhaps it’s overly dramatic to think that way – I hope so – but it does seem realistic at this moment. That is why I am so passionate about wanting to defend democracy and the kind of society it makes possible and why I am so drawn to works that express that passion through artful writing and story-telling. With authoritarian and totalitarian regimes dangerously on the rise, books that demonstrate the profound inhumanity and injustice of such regimes and how they extinguish democracy and human rights are needed now more than ever.
It is no surprise this book won a Pulitzer Prize. Particularly compelling is how, through a deeply personal and beautifully crafted story of a complex life and mind, it offers profound insight into the uneasy relationship among politics, science, war, and morality.
Oppenheimer, one of the greatest and most influential physicists of the 20th century, spearheaded not only the invention of the atomic bomb but also the quantum theory that made it possible and the policies governing its use and development. A left-wing thinker and sometimes communist sympathizer in his youth, and driven throughout his life by strong humanistic impulses, his work on the atomic bomb was motivated by a desire to defeat fascism in Europe.
Yet, in his work thereafter – which included opposing the development of the much more powerful hydrogen bomb – he was tragically undone by another authoritarian force: McCarthyism. The multiple Oscar-award winning film based…
Physicist and polymath, 'father of the atom bomb' J. Robert Oppenheimer was the most famous scientist of his generation. Already a notable young physicist before WWII, during the race to split the atom, 'Oppie' galvanized an extraordinary team of international scientists while keeping the FBI at bay. As the man who more than any other inaugurated the atomic age, he became one of the iconic figures of the last century, the embodiment of his own observation that 'physicists have known sin'.
Years later, haunted by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer became a staunch opponent of plans to develop the hydrogen bomb.…
I lived in London for eighteen years and acquired an abiding affection for my nation’s capital. I wanted to write a sequel to Bluebirds and jumped at the chance of giving Bryan Hale an adventure where he could walk the streets that I knew and loved. The scars caused on the fair face of London by sticks of Nazi bombs landing in ragged lines across the streets and terraces may still be discerned from the incongruity of the buildings that have since risen to fill the gaps. London heals and thrives. Ultimately, I believe every English writer harbours an ambition to write a London novel. I did, and I did.
British Radio Direction Finding stations (RDF), later to be dubbed Radar, with their iconic arrays of masts along England’s south coast, contributed greatly to the RAF’s success in the Battle of Britain by detecting approaching raids and giving early warning. Both sides in the European war possessed similar technologies operated from ground stations. The race to miniaturise RDF sets for airborne interception, once realised, would have devastating consequences for intruding bomber crews facing A.I. equipped night fighters over Britain and Germany. Price takes an even-handed approach in relating the development of these technologies in Britain, Germany, the US, and Japan, making this an absorbing and enjoyable read that demystifies an aspect of the war that is usually only mentioned in passing.
The rapid evolution of radio and radar systems for military use during World War II, and devices to counter them, led to a technological battle that neither the Axis nor the Allied powers could afford to lose. The result was a continual series of thrusts, parries, and counter-thrusts, as first one side then the other sought to wrest the initiative in the struggle to control the ether. This was a battle fought with strange-sounding weapons-"Freya," "Mandrel," "Boozer," and "Window"-and characterized by the bravery, self-sacrifice, and skill of those who took part in it. During the war, however, and for many…
From our very beginning, Americans have stood out from all other people on earth in one odd habit: We have a powerful reflex to fix problems ourselves—directly, locally, as individuals—instead of waiting for nobles or experts or government officials to save us. Between the volunteer hours and money we donate, our philanthropic efforts total close to a trillion dollars of organic problem-solving every year. It’s a wellspring of our national success. Struck by the effectiveness of our grassroots charitable action, I spent several years compiling the authoritative reference book that documents exactly how private giving bolsters U.S. prosperity, the Almanac of American Philanthropy. Then, I produced a historical novel portraying some great givers.
Many of us know that philanthropists have been central to eradicating disease, that charitable groups are powerful forces against hunger and poverty, and that philanthropy is behind many of our greatest educational successes. But did you know that private donors were largely responsible for making America the world leader in rocketry? That they willed the fields of aeronautics and biomedical engineering into existence.
During World War II, it was not a government agency but rather a philanthropist who jumpstarted the rollout of radar and then rescued the effort to create atomic weapons after it had bogged down in our defense bureaucracy. With this book, you can marvel at the WWII heroics accomplished by entrepreneur and generous giver Alfred Loomis.
In the fall of 1940, as German bombers flew over London and with America not yet at war, a small team of British scientists on orders from Winston Churchill carried out a daring transatlantic mission. The British unveiled their most valuable military secret in a clandestine meeting with American nuclear physicists at the Tuxedo Park mansion of a mysterious Wall Street tycoon, Alfred Lee Loomis. Powerful, handsome, and enormously wealthy, Loomis had for years led a double life, spending his days brokering huge deals and his weekends working with the world's leading scientists in his deluxe private laboratory that was…
Walter R. Borneman is an American military and political historian. He won the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize in Naval Literature for The Admirals: Nimitz, Halsey, Leahy, and King, a national bestseller. Borneman's other titles include Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona; MacArthur at War: World War II in the Pacific; and 1812: The War That Forged a Nation.
Yes, there was a naval war in the Atlantic, too. Had not the Allies defeated Hitler’s U-boats over a multi-year battle—the longest of the war—World War II would likely have been lost no matter the heroics in the Pacific. Hitler’s U-Boat War does for the Battle of the Atlantic what Blair did with Silent Victory for submarine actions in the Pacific.
This bookis exhaustive in detail—pick a boat or an engagement, and Blair has chronicled it— but taken overall, these volumes show the tenuous nature of the battle that was won in the aggregate by individual conflicts between hunter and hunted. This is a reliable desktop reference as well as a compelling read.
"His monumental work...is the most thorough study of the U-boat campaign available." --Library Journal
Hitler's U-boat War is an epic sea story about the most arduous and prolonged naval battle in history. For a period of nearly six years, the German U-boat force attempted to blockade and isolate the British Isles in hopes of forcing the British out of the war, thereby thwarting both the Allied strategic air assault on German cities and Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Occupied France. Fortunately for the Allies, the U-boat force failed to achieve either of these objectives, but in the attempt they…
I have been writing non-fiction Second World War history books since 2000 and just recently had my twenty-first published by Osprey. Most deal with aspects of the history of Germany’s U-boats. Though I have had a lifelong interest in military history, the desire to write about this topic began while living near Brest in Brittany, France. I am a scuba diving instructor and spent a great deal of time diving on wrecks left behind by the Kriegsmarine, all in the shadow of the huge U-boat bunkers created in Brest’s military harbour. Encouraged by authors Jon Gawne and Robert Strauss I submitted the proposal for the First U-Boat Flotilla to Pen & Sword in 2000…and it went from there.
This novel was first published in Germany in 1954, based on the author’s actual experience as a U-boat man during the Second World War. Told through the eyes of the fictional Teichmann, it is a visceral tour-de-force of German naval life beginning on minesweepers and gravitating toward U-boats. A brilliant portrayal of a grim reality.
I read this book during my teenage years and it was one of the first times I can remember reading a book that is grittily realistic; devoid of the 'boy's own' adventure style of many Second World War novels, but nor did it preach an obvious repentance by the German protagonist that also became quite common. In that sense, it’s virtually a dramatized documentary story of the author’s war.
This raw, brawling novel, first published in 1957, is a fiercely realistic account of naval combat during World War II--in particular, the hell that was Nazi submarine warfare. "A German counterpart to The Caine Mutiny" (Frederic Morton), SHARKS AND LITTLE FISH is based on the author's own experiences as a young submariner. "It is as uncompromising, vivid, and unfalsified an account of war-time naval life as has appeared." (Times Literary Supplement)
I’ve been writing on maritime, naval, and military subjects for nearly a quarter-century, beginning with my first published work, “Unsinkable – The Full Story of RMS Titanic” in 1998. My fascination with ships and the sea originated with my father, who served in the US Merchant Marine in the Second World War. His experiences in the North Atlantic in 1943-44 gave me to understand that no matter how large and powerful – or small and fragile – a ship may be, it is her crewmen who brings her life, and sometimes go to their deaths with her. It’s their stories that matter most when recounting the naval battles of any war, and these five books are among the best at presenting them.
The Battle of the Atlantic (or the Atlantic Campaign) was the longest and one of the deadliest battles of the Second World War. Of the 40,000 men who served in the German U-boats, 30,000 of them lie at the bottom of the ocean, while over 70,000 Allied naval and merchant marine personnel lost their lives. Blair, in what could have been a cold, impersonal recounting of facts and figures, puts a very human face on the confrontations between the U-boats and their prey – the Allied merchant ships and their naval escorts – in the battle that both sides desperately wanted to win, as whoever lost would lose the war.
The first volume of Clay Blair's magisterial, highly praised narrative history of the German submarine war against Allied shipping in World War II, The Hunters, 1939-1942, described the Battle of the Atlantic waged first against the British Empire and then against the Americas. This second and concluding volume, The Hunted, 1942-1945, covers the period when the fortunes of the German Navy were completely reversed, and it suffered perhaps the most devastating defeat of any of the German forces.
In unprecedented detail and drawing on sources never used before, Clay Blair continues the dramatic and authoritative story of the failures and…
I’ve been fascinated by "sea stories" since I could read, maybe before. I was born in Liverpool, my dad was in the navy, my family ran an 18th-century inn named the Turk’s Head after a nautical knot, and I’ve directed or written more than twenty films, plays, and novels with the sea as their setting. But they’re not really about the sea. For me, the sea is a mirror to reflect the human condition, a theatre for all the human dramas I can imagine. More importantly, I’ve read over a hundred sea stories for research and pleasure, and those I’ve chosen for you are the five I liked best.
I love this book because it’s the best book I’ve ever read about love at a time of war.
Put simply, this is the story of an escort ship during the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2, but there’s nothing simple about it. Montserrat uses the sea and the ever-present danger of the U-boats as a monstrous vice to squeeze blood onto the page.
All the hopes and fears of his characters, their passions and guilts, their love of life, and of their male comrades and the women they leave behind them. It’s all there under the magnifying lens of the war at sea, and of all five books, this is the best about the sea itself, the all-pervasive, relentless leviathan that rages and roars and rampages across every page.
Based on the author's own vivid experiences, The Cruel Sea is the nail-biting story of the crew of HMS Compass Rose, a corvette assigned to protect convoys in World War Two.
Darting back and forth across the icy North Atlantic, Compass Rose played a deadly cat and mouse game with packs of German U-boats lying in wait beneath the ocean waves.
Packed with tension and vivid descriptions of agonizing U-boat hunts, this tale of the most bitter and chilling campaign of the war tells of ordinary, heroic men who had to face a brutal menace which would strike without warning…
