Why am I passionate about this?
I’m an emeritus professor of modern American diplomatic history at the University of California, having previously taught at Oberlin, Caltech, and Yale. I’ve also been chairman of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum, where I was the Curator of Military Space. I’ve been fascinated—and concerned—about nuclear weapons and nuclear war since I was 12, when I saw the movie On the Beach. Then, as now, nuclear weapons and the (currently-increasing) danger of nuclear war are the most important things on the planet.
Gregg's book list on who made and thought about using bombs
Why did Gregg love this book?
Even after almost forty years, Rhodes’s book is still the most detailed, accurate, and readable account of how the atomic bomb came to be.
The author’s description of the moment Leo Szilard realized the weapon was possible still brings me to tears. Nobody has done this history better.
7 authors picked The Making of the Atomic Bomb as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
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…