Reviews for Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima

The average rating for Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-09-23 00:00:00 Bryan Widener physicists get-togethers: Einstein called them "witches sabbaths" radium - considered miracle element, most expensive substance in the world. used to make x-rays. toothpaste made of thorium - to make teeth radiantly white CURIE HAIR TONIC, bath salts, suppositories, chocolates pierre curie - stepped in front of carriage, slipped, fell, wheel crushed his skull marie curie - had affair with married physicist (scandal); died of radiation poinsing; her fingers long mangled from radiation. before she died took her own temperature & saw the end was coming chemists who made WWI poison gas - thought they were saving lives by shortening war Rape of Nanking - japan attacked capital of China. killed 200,000 civilians, 500,000 soldiers, 90,000 prisoners. women were raped (1 woman to 15 men) then killed Navy cryptographers decoded Japan telegram 4 days before Pearl Harbor asking Japanese consul for detailed troop & ship movements; she took it to head of her dept who told her he would get back to it monday. British scientists first to decide bomb was doable and roughly how to do it. Germany had program, Heisenberg headed URANVEREIN project. thought the trick was using carbon, rather than "heavy water" (H20 with extra H) otherwise they might have succeeded. Heisenberg wanted Germany to win and was actively pursuing it (tho later he denied it). Moe Berg (baseball player) sent to conference with gun & directions to shoot Heisenberg if he thought german scientists were close to making bomb. Bohr smuggled out to england in bomb chute of plain. lost consciousness at high altitude, but regained when plane lowered. Russia & Japan had programs of their own. Russian spy at Los Almos passed secret info. to convince FDR to build a bomb, he was told how Fulton offered Napoleon steamships to defeat Britain, but Napoleon failed to value technology Hiroshima: Truman told a group of sailors "This is the greatest thing in history" some wanted to just show japanese bomb. pilot felt taste of lead on teeth - radiation affecting fillings! center of bomb : 1,800,00 degrees; ground was 6K degrees; energy: 35% heat, 50% blast, 15% radiation

Review # 2 was written on 2009-08-19 00:00:00 Brenda Allen My favorite nonfiction book of all time is The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Telling a story that combines brilliant individuals, the biggest scientific endeavor of all time and intense political drama, it is hard to go wrong, but author Richard Rhodes knocked it out of the park with this phone book sized opus. It is, I believe, the only nonfiction book I have read three times. Loving the subject matter and having had success with some of her other histories, I had to try Diana Preston's Before the Fallout, which covers much of the same ground. The Preston book is much shorter and has a tighter bibliographic focus that the Rhodes book. While the achievements of the scientists lies at the core of the Preston book, it doesn't go into the intense detail that the Rhodes book does. You won't see the extensive reporting on weapons design that you will find in the Rhodes book, but you will get a close look at the community of science that discovered the secrets and created the ideas that led to the bomb. Preston writes clear, accessible engaging prose and her books cover a wide range of subjects including the Lusitania sinking, the Boxer Rebellion and polar exploration. This one on the Taj Mahal looks quite good as well.