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Editorial Review Product Description
The fascinating story of the men who founded the nuclear age, fully told for the first time
The story of the twentieth century is largely the story of the power of science and technology. Within that story is the incredible tale of the human conflict between Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller-the scientists most responsible for the advent of weapons of mass destruction.
How did science-and its practitioners-enlisted in the service of the state during the Second World War, become a slave to its patron during the Cold War? The story of these three men, builders of the bombs, is fundamentally about loyalty-to country, to science, and to each other-and about the wrenching choices that had to be made when these allegiances came into conflict.
Gregg Herken gives us the behind-the-scenes account based upon a decade of research, interviews, and newly released Freedom of Information Act and Russian documents. Brotherhood of the Bomb is a vital slice of American history told authoritatively-and grippingly-for the first time.
Amazon.com Review
It would be difficult to identify three American scientists whose work had a greater effect on world politics than Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller. This exhaustive account of how they worked together (and competed against each other) on the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs is more a story of people than science. Author Gregg Herken of the Smithsonian Institution informs us, for instance, of Oppenheimer's "riotous parties" in the 1930s, in which latecomers would see "the top physicists of their generation, drunk and crouched on all fours, playing a version of tiddly-winks on the geometric patterns of Oppenheimer's Navajo rug." Despite a few light touches, Brotherhood of the Bomb is no breezy profile of three great minds. Instead, it is a serious look at invention, rivalry, and betrayal. One of the central episodes involves Oppenheimer's too-cozy relationship with radical-left politics--he carelessly associated with Communists, even though he occupied one of the most sensitive jobs in the U.S. government during the cold war--and Teller's momentous decision to testify against him. This event is one of the most controversial in the annals of American science, and Herken tells it straight, with barely a word of editorial comment. Fans of Richard Rhodes will enjoy this triple biography, as will anybody with an interest in science, politics, and top-secret security clearances. --John J. Miller ... Read more Customer Reviews (20) 
Great.
I bought this as a gift for someone for Christmas. He enjoyed the book very much.
Snooze
In the world of historians, Daniel J. Boorstin stands head and shoulders above all lesser writers in that nonfiction genre, much as Loren Eiseley and, to a lesser extent, Stephen Jay Gould, reign supreme as literary craftsmen in the sciences. This thought was inescapable to me as I read yet another in a prolix series of books about the historic import of scientists. Since the two disciplines- science and history- often intertwine when reading books about the Manhattan Project comparisons of the writers of such books with the aforementioned trinity is inevitable, as well as very productive in the art of criticism. Thus, when I read the 2002 book, Brotherhood Of The Bomb, by Gregg Herken- an atomic bomb junky whose prior works (such as The Winning Weapons: The Atomic Bomb In The Cold War) were soaked in the topic, I had to groan, for Herken has absolutely no grasp of what makes for compelling nor imaginative writing.
When one reads the classics of Boorstin- such as The Discoverers, The Creators, or The Americans, one is engrossed by his novelistic techniques which can make the most well known tales of historical figures and cast them in a patina of freshness. When one reads the essays of Eiseley, gathered in classics like The Night Country or The Immense Journey, one is blown away by the elegant poesy and profundity of his sentences. When one reads the essays of Gould- from books like The Mismeasure Of Man or Bully For Brontosaurus, one is dazzled by his ability to thread together the most seemingly disparate things into a coherent idea. But, in Brotherhood Of The Bomb one is merely bored to nihility by Herken's turgidity and utter lack of insight into his subject matter, as well as the pointless epigraphs for the book's five parts....Herken too often veers from the making of the bomb- the only reason anyone would care of these three intellectual bores, to try to exculpate Oppenheimer, so that the first atomic test is written of only in a few pages. This is like writing of Newton's theory of gravity and focusing on the worm in the legendary apple that was to fall onto the scientist's head. Yet, this is the state most writing- fictive or not, has devolved to in this day and age. The book won many literary awards upon its release, and Herken himself was awarded a hefty MacArthur Genius Grant to write the book. Yet nothing speaks more highly of the absolute lack of depth and insight the book displays than how Herken ends it, by reciting the well known dueling apothegms of Oppenheimer and Teller, where the former declares that `Physicists have known sin,' only to have his rival retort, `I would say that physicists have known power.'
Such summative words show that Herken, far from being an objective researcher, was more a kid in a- groan, please- candy shop, who tossed off this banal book to fulfill a childish obsession. There are no larger ideas nor any penetrating revelations that only this book dared to print. Perhaps such needless space consumption is ok as fodder for the Lowest Common Denominator blogs that choke the internet, but valuable publishing resources should not be wasted on such pap. If you agree, then click over to Herken's book's website Brotherhood Of The Bomb, or shoot him and email at gherken@brotherhoodofthebomb.com, and let him know that the waste of pulp is also a sin that his hero, Oppenheimer, would disavow, and to stay cyber. Do not do it for me, do it for Boorstin, Eiseley, and Gould. Better yet, do it for yourself....or the trees.
Well Researched, Well Written
I love reading well-written books! The Brotherhood of the Bomb is one such book. I've read a fair share of Manhattan Project/Oppenheimer books. Brotherhood does a great job of widening the focus and putting three men (Oppenheimer, Lawrence and Teller) in view, instead of just one. Much of the Oppenheimer material was familiar to me from American Prometheus or The Making of the Atomic Bomb (both excellent), but this book put those events in the context of the ongoing (and often fractious) relationships between these three men. In some ways we're still living in their shadows. Great Book!
The most Interesting Book You Never Want To Read
...a copy of this belongs in every major library, not necessarily in everyone's library. Excessively detailed and turgid, it is yet another story of the bomb(s) and the major players who developed it.
Better reads would be Richard Rhodes' amazing books on the atomic bomb and hydrogen boms and various biographies of Oppenheimer.
And don't forget the terrific mini-series on Oppenheimer, by the same name, re-released on dvd by the BBC, unfortunately in Region 2 format only. Watch this if you can.
Opje was an Elfin King of Many a Thing...
Thunderous clouds, brilliant purple and multicolor radioactive plumes jettisoning what were once precious sought after kilograms of chemistry's beyond bizzare materials.Such is the ballad that was played one mid-July morning, 1945, at Trinity Test Site, some 20 miles east south east of San Antonio, NM, after years of ingenius experimental and theoretical work, computation, sweating, rivalry, and finally utterly destructive convergeancey into one of modern science's most awe inspiring gadgets.'The gadget' as it would come to be called, set off much else than meagerly its own wired and machined self - in the process of self-detonation, the world's first atom bomb brought about, unexpectedly and unforseen, a world's first feat, an end to a world conflict, - Pacific front - a murky arms race with juxtaposed cold war, and, in the end one of mankinds most thrilling achievements.Insofar as today's youth can but arbitrarily surmount such things as 'shock waves' or 'nonlinear implosionary ballistics dynamics,' fresh-faced prodigys, physics phenoms, and other human wonder-brains pulled off not only calculations of destiny, but together made Los Alamos into the 'biggest collection of eggheads ever assembled.'The conflict-laden tale of Robert Oppenheimer (head of Project Manhatten, razor-sharp intellect, lead bomb scientist), Ernest Lawrence (brilliant, charismatic, enthusiastic, well-liked Rad Lad originator and Nobel Laureate for his cyclotron radiation experiments), and 'the only monomaniac to suffer from multiple manias, Beethoven piano playing in nothing but fortissimo, Hungarian figurehead, H-bomb creator (sort of)' Edward Teller.Three characters starkly in contrast to each other's standout, signature diacritics: Oppenheimer as excessively learned linguist and rapid assimilator; Lawrence as driven lab leader with a taste for breaking particle accelerator barriers; Teller as European half-scientist, half-artist idea maker.What was to be born in each of these men's dreams - however much in contrast those drifting epiphanies may have been - manifested themselves first on paper as drawing or formulae, then as physical device or working instrument.Brotherhood of the Bomb is indeed a story of the tangled correspondances and relationships forged and endured throughout the war, but it is more than that.It delves deep into personal convictions, dilemmas, creativity, mystifying outcomes of the scientific method and journey, and controversial until-now-unspoken tid bits from an era of Top Secrecy.Remembering such times is difficult to say the very least even for the men, and women, directly involved.This is perhaps so because the people at the fore, engrossed in whatever field of research, were themselves in every way imaginable enigmas - contradictions in motion in several instances.Loyalties would become circumspect, motives would held under microscope, but inevitably the real impact of a product of incomprehensible physics is to be realized most dismayingly.Costs and benefits aside, a history of an odyssey only meant for storybooks is casually uncovered via the recorded conversations and testimonies of some of America's cleverest progenitors of atomic energy and its later fabrications (i.e. Three Mile Island incident frenzy).If anything, the clueless sees an open door into the realm of nuclear technology's immemorial upbringing(s) and drama(s).Even six decades later, the actual underpinnings of the bomb are little understood except in major institutions and classified memos/docs.This title's innards unearth a memoir so shockingly abstract, it has to be reread repeatedly in order to grasp any certain feel for what occured, what prompted its occurence, and what eventuated beyond zero hour in New Mexicos vaguely populated regions - similar to spotting a haystack enveloping a needle, you pick the size.
In a land of enchantment, one may yet find green-hued intense-heat-fused silicates of that moment in history when thermodynamicist, hydrodynamicisit, theoretist in general all let out a gargantuan 'Yahoo!' predating Google's punching bag companion of a search engine.
Echoes no longer may be detected in now and then restricted spaces, but on that morning just following a timely (to them painstakingly unwelcomed) foreshadowing thunderstorm of nature's ever present wrath, the genie was unleashed...never to be resealed.Loose for purposes unknown and grandiose.Rustically elegant though the desert may be, a flash of a thousand suns was never intentionally in store, or until it became apparent by sight and sound... as well as indetectible rays of near cosmic intensity and proportion.
This book is so well written I don't dare try to emulate or mimic its prose.Intimate details of the three protagonists nearest the atom bomb's core are intriguingly lurid, stunning in places, still somehow comforting to those who care about science and its indisputable power and constant legacy.One physicist I would like to have seen mentioned more is John Von Neumann, who essentially single-handedly - by rigorously furthering the conceptual drafts of Neddermeyer through mathematical construct and logical proof - theorized implosion, amongst a vast array of other topics and subjects only a rare but true polymath could conjure (Claude Shannon is another).Without Von Neumann there is no Super, no computer architecture, no game theory, no quantum mechanics (or at least its 'Group Theory' aspects) and no non-fictional inspiration for generations succeeding.
Also, of due notoriety is the background and determined leadership of General Leslie R. Groves - lead construction planner of the Pentagon and Project Manhatten organizer possessing immense profundity of temperance and sensibilty.
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