The first thing I will say about The Making of the Atomic Bomb is that
it is thorough. Rhodes covers every detail needed to tell the story of the
men and women that developed the first atom bomb. He starts farther back than
just the Manhattan Project with the discoveries about the principles of matter
that were built upon and led to the great discoveries like neutrons and fission.
At points the detail was almost too much. While great and fascinating
discoveries there was so much to get through that I actually ended up putting
the book down and reading something else twice. That was good because trying
to push that much information in when I’m not needing it (like say when I was
in school or for work) just isn’t fun and for me reading is fun. It’s an
extracurricular activity. I like to enjoy what I read and with Atomic
Bomb I knew there would be a big payoff.

As I got farther and farther into the book I started to meet up with the more
modern giants of research. Seeing how their lives were effected and shaped
by the world around them and the political atmosphere of the time certainly
gives me a new found respect for them. Escaping political persecution and
facing the real possibility that those bent on world domination could have
obtained the bomb must have been an unprecedented stress and motivational
factor in pushing some of these scientists forward.

As the book moved through the early stages of the war and into the founding
of the Los Alamos lab things seemed impossibly slow to me. I realize I’m
looking at the events from the successful side, but the way the government
seemed to drag it’s feet was incredibly. To the credit of everyone involved
they did seem to pick up the pace and move with appreciable speed as
discoveries progressed. I was significantly impressed with the speed at which
the government finally did get production plants and research moving.

The last third of the book was the most exciting. The building of the bomb,
the development of the implosion devices, the testing of the theories, all of
it was nearly nail biting. The hurdles those men had to overcome were fantastic
and they still did it.

The descriptions of the bombing of Hiroshima were quite fantastic and
horrifying. I am saddened that any group of people, in war time or not, had
to experience such devastation and destruction. I understand the motivations
for using such awesome weapons in that situation, but thankfully no one else has
had to go through an atomic blast and hopefully no one ever will.

Discussions on the secrecy of the projects involved were also particularly
eye opening. Seeing the scientists that were used to an open scientific
society having to close off from even family and friends was eye opening. The
need to keep certain parties from building on discoveries they made was
paramount, but I think it only harmed the general scientific community in the
long run. Lessons from then have been wrongly applied to today in the wake
of “terrorism” and a supposed call for security where some research has been
squelched and information redacted. All of these secrecy things do nothing but
cause wasted effort in research and limit the good benefits of certain fields.

All in all I loved the book. I’m looking forward to getting href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684824140/ref=nosim/danimalorg-20"
>
Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb also by Richard Rhodes,
however I’m going to wait a bit on that one since it’s just a thick and dense
as Atomic Bomb.

Over the last month or so I’ve been reading it on the train to and from work
with the exception of a title="Book Review: Syrup and Jennifer Government">much needed
fiction break. I have to say, Jacobs has done a good job of making sure
examples are clear and understandable and going through and referring to them
so that all of her assertions and statements tie into one another.

Even though the book was written in the early sixties there are still many
cases where Jacobs’ warnings about what not to do still apply. Some of the
examples felt a little dated but at no time were they no longer relevant to
explaining the situation at hand. I often found myself looking back on when I
lived in New York (or forward to the few examples from San Francisco) and
trying to see how things have changed in the intervening 40 years. Some
things haven’t changed and others have gotten better. It seems to me that some
city planning now gets the ideas Jacobs was putting forward and there is
definite progress in making cities less sterile and more functional than
previous planners would have done.

I was particularly struck by the talk about parks. I had never really stopped
and thought about parks as possibly areas that are detriments to neighborhoods,
even though I’ve seen bad parks before. I guess that plane of thought is
just from what has been beat into the public about what is good and what isn’t
in a city. Ideas that Jacobs soundly debunks.

Near where I work (between the Mission District and Protrero Hill in San
Francisco) there is a park called Franklin Square. I’ve never really thought
about the park before other than seeing it from the street. Generally I’m
walking on the opposite side of the street from it and when I do walk next to
it I don’t pay it any mind. It always seems to have some construction and
parts of it appear fenced off. There are also a lot of homeless people that
hang out in the park from what I can see. That combined with few entrances
(the park is on a hill so from at least two sides there is a retaining wall
around it that is quite foreboding) and general lack of kempt make it a place
to avoid. There is never any reason to go through the park even though that
could be a nicer route were it a nicer park. I was actually shocked to learn
from a little web searching that Franklin Square href="http://www.sfneighborhoodparks.org/parkhistories/franklinsquare.html"
title="Franklin Square History">has quite the history and at one time
was a well regarded park. I’m not sure if the park is used much now and
honestly it doesn’t really look like it is well utilized, but it seems as
though there might be efforts to rehabilitate it. It’s actually kind of funny
because many of us at work have lamented the fact that there is no nearby park
(but there is, Franklin Square) that we could go and sit in to eat lunch.
Instead we end up on the much more desolate roof of our building. It has a
nice view but not so much greenery or shade.

Of the four sections of the book the first two seemed to drag a little bit, but
I realized later Jacobs was just laying down the groundwork for what was to
come, feeding fuel into the fire if you will. The third and fourth sections
were the ones I liked the best. They dealt totally with how to identify what
is wrong in a city and how to go about correcting it. cities are amazing
entities that I am still awed at every day. Even a small city like San
Francisco has it’s share of dumb luck, bad planning, and corrective
behavior from within.

Now that I’ve finished the book I’m going to see what I notice as I go about
my life in the Bay Area. While reading the book I was also able to pick up
on some good concepts about work and the way things should be setup and
coddled as they relate to cities, but that’s a post for another time.

I was quite happy to have learned a lot of cool information about the Portuguese
Empire and Dutch Imperialism. Seeing how those things helped to shape the
world is fascinating. Winchester also does an excellent job of explaining the
social ramifications of the Krakatoa explosion, especially the rise of Islam
in the region of Java (Indonesia).

The science explanations about plate tectonics and the like were sufficiently
deep enough for me, but not so thick as to be unapproachable (and Winchester
does a great job of providing reference should a reader be interested in
more scientific reading). His common explanations helped me to visualize
what was happening and picture the times that were during the explosion.

This is a good book and people that can stomach history texts should give it a
go. The only thing I found deficient about the book was the lack of one clear
map that shows Krakatoa’s relation to the Islands of Java and Sumatra along
with city and town names (some of which don’t exist any longer) so that the
reader could easily flip back to the map and better visualize locations.