The two months since my last post have flown by...I've been planning an August wedding (we got engaged on Easter, so we have a quick turn-around!) and have finally found time to read again with most of the planning taken care of at this point. :)
After several people praised Bomb, I had to pick it up and give it a go. It had several things going for it that made me want to read it (other than all the recommendations I received)....it is about history, it is about spies, and it is about advanced science that is accessible to my level of science--which means, it is accessible to a middle school science student. :) (I find science fascinating, yet rather intimidating, so for nuclear fission to be made accessible to me is awesome!!)
The book opens in May of 1950 with two FBI agents arriving at Harry Gold's home in Philadelphia to search it for evidence of spying for the Soviets. Gold finally admits to spying and says he needs to tell the whole story. The story continues with how Harry (as well as others) got pulled into spying for the Soviets.
In 1938 a German chemist named Otto Hahn discovered that he could cause uranium atoms to split, physicists around the world began to experiment with this new phenomenon. Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939, encouraging him to begin funding research on building a bomb with this new knowledge, as Hitler and the Germans were certainly working toward that same end. Should Hitler attain this powerful weapon first, the war would be over and Germany would be the victors.
Once the United States began their research in earnest, Robert Oppenheimer was named the director of the Manhattan Project (the name for the American's bomb project). Oppenheimer began to recruit top scientists from across the country, many who were European Jews who had escaped Hitler's massacre. Once the top secret research was started, not only were the Germans trying to get their hands on the information that the Americans had, but Stalin and the KGB were even more insistent on getting the information. So much so that the KGB was actually able to find individuals working on the Manhattan Project who were supportive of Russia and Communism and willing to give highly classified information over to the Soviets.
When President Truman dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, Stalin was furious that the American's had beat him. By August 29, 1949, the Russians had their first successful atomic bomb, which ignited the Cold War.
While I knew some of the details about the Manhattan Project and the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, I did not know most of the details of the race between Germany, Russian and the United States to be the first to build an atomic weapon, and even less of the spying that went on to accomplish it. I had heard of several of the big names: Robert Oppenheimer, the Rosenbergs, and Moe Berg, but beyond those names, everyone else was a new character to me who was fascinating to learn about.
This book is definitely going to go into my book talk rotation for nonfiction for next year!!
Happy Reading!!
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