The Ultimate Weapon: The Race to Develop the Atomic Bomb
The history of the Manhattan Project presents a daunting challenge to any author writing for a general audience—especially when that audience is young readers. Sullivan responds admirably with an account that effectively distills the science behind the development of the atomic bomb into understandable terms and that turns the human story behind the project into compelling drama. Most histories of the Manhattan Project focus on Robert Oppenheimer and the other scientists who worked with him to create the bomb at Los Alamos, but Sullivan gives plenty of space to the activities at the two other project sites: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where enhanced uranium was manufactured, and Hanford, Washington, where bomb-ready plutonium was developed. Without slighting the familiar parts of the Manhattan Project story—the scientific breakthroughs, the Trinity test, the flight of the Enola Gay, the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions—Sullivan takes readers into daily life at all three sites, showing the less-than-comfortable conditions under which thousands of men and women worked. Effectively illustrated with archival photographs, this volume will be useful both as personal reading and as background for reports. Ott, Bill