Mukherjee states that two of his influences for the book were Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On and Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but the defining moment for him was "when he conceived of his book as a biography".
Mukherjee menyatakan bahwa dua sumber pengaruh untuk buku ini adalah And the Band Played On karya Randy Shilts dan The Making of the Atomic Bomb karya Richard Rhodes, tetapi saat-saat menentukan baginya adalah "ketika ia menulis bukunya sebagai biografi".