Atomic: The First War of Physics and the Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939-1949
Jim Baggott tells the monumental history of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon, and the stories of the scientists involved. Re-issued in 2015.
In August 2015 it will be 70 years since the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hirsohima and Nagasaki. Atomic will be re-issued by Icon Books in July with a new cover and a foreword by Jeremy Bernstein.
Rich in personality, action, confrontation and deception, Atomic is the first fully realized popular account of the race between Nazi Germany, Britain, America and the Soviet Union to build atomic weapons. These were weapons that ended the Second World War and framed the early Cold War between the superpowers.
The book draws on declassified material such as MI6’s Farm Hall transcripts, coded Soviet messages cracked by American cryptographers in the Venona project and interpretations by Russian scholars of documents from the Soviet archives. Jim Baggott weaves these threads into a monumental book that spans ten historic years, from the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939 to ‘Joe-1’, the first Soviet atomic bomb test in August 1949. It includes dramatic episodes such as the sabotage of the Vemork heavy water plant by Norwegian commandos and the infamous meeting between Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, the subject of Michael Frayn’s stage play Copenhagen.
Atomic was Shortlisted for the Duke of Westminster Medal for Military Literature.
- Icon Books (March 2009)
- Translations: Hebrew, Japanese, Russian