Fallout

Posted by Rezwan on Jan 03, 2011 at 12:13 AM
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Fallout

by Jim Ottaviani •

Thanks to Carmine for recommending this book to me.

From Dan:

This graphic novel, subtitled “J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb”, is a good quick read. It’s hard for my generation, raised with the fall of the Soviet Union, to appreciate how stupendous the atomic bomb really was. But this book does a great job of making the history of that period accessible. The book is not that short-around 200 pages-but, due to its graphic nature, is very easy to read.

Fallout is really divided into two major sections. The first is concerned with the idea and creation of the atomic bomb, starting from Szilard’s ideas in the 1930s and ending with the Trinity test in 1945. The second is concerned with the inquiry into Oppenheimer’s advisory position to the Atomic Energy Commission, which occured in the political climate of the 1950s. Both these are worth reading, but the second one, which has much more text-portions of letters are printed along with the graphics-is a chilling reminder of the craziness of that time.