Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb 
by Richard Rhodes (1996)
read: 2 May 2010
rating: [+]
category: non-fiction
An alternate, and more accurate subtitle for this book would be, “How the Soviets Stole The Bomb.” There is a fair amount of science in the book, and I had flashbacks to high school chemistry when Rhodes started printing nuclear equations. However, if science isn’t your thing you can skim those sections as the book overall is definitely recommended.
A fair amount of the book focuses on the post WWII espionage efforts of the USSR to catch up on bomb making by stealing all the secrets from the US. They mostly succeed in that department and the book often reads like a top notch spy thriller. Another focus is the political machinations around getting the thermonuclear bomb built. Scientists with egos invested in the process had differing opinions of how best to go about it. Some scientists, upon seeing the devastation in Hiroshima, had second thoughts about building an exponentially more powerful bomb. And some thought we should build the bomb, but that just one nation having it was a destabilizing influence in the world. Not surprisingly, these differing factions didn’t get along with each other. The final third of the book is a somewhat quickpaced history of the beginnings of the cold war. There are accusations online that Rhodes' history is not entirely accurate through this part of the book. Details aside, what I took from it is that we were much closer to nuking Korea during that war than I had ever imagined, and that elements within SAC strongly believed that a preemptive nuclear strike on the USSR (before they got their bomb program rolling) was a really fine idea. Also, and this really isn’t news, the CIA was generally widely inaccurate with their estimates of Soviet capabilities. Also interesting to me was just how much of the US economy was going into the bomb program in the 50s. Those glory days of free market capitalism in mid-century didn’t really exist. The economy was booming in big part to all the money the government was spending building bombs. Overall, the book is highly recommended as a richly detailed look at the early years of the cold war and the political machinations surrounding The Bomb.« top »