Dark Sun
The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb

This book is no Making of the Atomic Bomb, but it is still an excellent account of the history of the H-Bomb. It continues exactly where the Making of the Atomic Bomb ended and it proceeds to tell the history of not the H-bomb but the start of the Cold War. With Russian espionage, first Soviet atomi......more

Years ago I'd read and enjoyed Rhodes's earlier The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Because that was a history of atomic research, the Manhattan Project, and the resulting bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'd expected Dark Sun to be a history in a similar style. It's partly that; the record of how the......more

- I've never read a passage so erotic that subtly turns in gross horror. (The incredible depth and detail of the ignition of the Mike thermonuclear device and all of the physics involved in it's operation as it expands outwards and turns into a wave of destruction.) - WTF moment 1: Curtis LeMay casua......more

Richard Rhodes described the beginnings of the atomic age in his "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." The scientific-military Manhattan Project was born of the necessity to beat the Nazis into production of atomic bombs and ended with their use by the United States against Japan. "Dark Sun" tells the hi......more

The hydrogen bomb is the natural sequel to the atomic bomb, but Dark Sun is a shadow of its predecessor, and Rhodes can't find a single narrative thread in this trudge of a history. The individual pieces are there, the transformation of the American atomic complex from a handful of scattered parts i......more