The book describes the lives of the people who gave Stalin his weapon — scientists, engineers, managers, and prisoners during the early post war years from 1945-1953. Many anecdotes and vicissitudes of life at that time in the Soviet Union accompany considerable technical information regarding the solutions to formidable problems of nuclear weapons development. The contents should interest the reader who wants to learn more about this part of the history and politics in 20th century physics. The prevention of nuclear proliferation is a topic of current interest, and the procedure followed by the Soviet Union as described in this book will help to understand the complexities involved.

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"Ford's book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of the H bomb and its role in the Cold War, and in how that work affected the life and career of an individual involved."

"Personal memories are the book's greatest strength. Ford doesn't glorify, or apologize for, his work on the H-bomb. He simply tells it as it was. As a result, this is an engagingly human glimpse into the world of physics in the US in the early 1950s."

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The book recovers and reconstructs what Oppenheimer said and wrote during the 1940s, 50s and 60s (i.e., his hope and vision) with the goal of identifying what might be of general philosophical interest today. It considers not only Oppenheimer's thought, but also his life using philosophical ideas developed by contemporary philosophers.

In addition, to deepen and broaden the discussion and demonstrate the relevance of Oppenheimer's vision for the present, the author analyzes his views using contemporary international relations theory with a special emphasis on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. This examination reveals ways in which Oppenheimer's reasoning was prescient of current work being carried out to control, and possibly move beyond, the nuclear revolution..

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This book presents the first detailed biography of George Placzek — an outstanding physicist, a participant in the Manhattan Project who stood at the very inception of nuclear physics and the subsequent development of the nuclear bomb in the course of the WWII. In the 1930s, George Placzek was known as an adventurous person with a sharp sense of humor, a tireless generator of novel physics ideas which he generously shared with his colleagues. Born in Brno (now Czech Republic) into a wealthy Jewish family, he lost all his relatives to Holocaust, casting a tragic shadow on his life.

Placzek's scientific career began in the late 1920s when the quantum revolution was almost over, but nuclear physics was still at its infancy. He established personal and scientific relations with the creators of quantum mechanics, such as Heisenberg in Leipzig and Niels Bohr in Copenhagen. In Rome, he worked with Fermi, and in Copenhagen he became a part of Bohr's nuclear physics team which dominated nuclear theory at that time. The scope of Placzek's pilgrimage around world physics centers in the 1930s was unique among his colleagues. In January 1939, George Placzek managed to emigrate from Europe to the US, and became a part of the British Mission within the Manhattan Project. His physical insights were instrumental in advancing from the basic discoveries on nuclear chain reactions to the Trinity experiment, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This book is a unique compilation of a large number of previously unknown and unpublished documents from private and university archives, police reports, etc. Placzek's correspondence with the leadership of the Hebrew University in 1934, the 1937 NKVD interrogation files of Konrad Weisselberg, recollections of Ella Andriesse as well as the Zurich Police report of 1956 detailing the circumstances of Placzek's death in a Zurich hotel are illuminating as they shed light on poorly known pages of his life.

This book is a collection of personal memories about the people who participated in the USSR atomic project — Landau, Alikhanov, Pomeranchuk, Alikhanian, Migdal Jr., Gribov, Zeldovich, Sakharov, Kurchatov, Vannikov, Eldian. As the author is the only living person who was involved in the project, these personal recollections are interesting and unique for a broad audience who has been unfamiliar with the details so far.

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In the late April of 1986, the world learned about the quaint town in the Central Ukraine — Chernobyl. The largest nuclear catastrophe in the history of mankind, which affected the lives of millions and millions, had forced the USSR government to take unprecedented actions. One of them was the formation of a cleanup crew from the Army reservists. They were tasked with a titanic chore of cleaning the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant from radioactive debris after the explosion of Reactor #4. Sergei Belyakov, then a PhD scientist, volunteered to become one of the many "nuclear jumpers" of that long-forgotten crew. This book sums up his recollections about that nuclear jumper stint. It is written not as a traditional memoir, but as an alloy of personal views and feelings, templated over the information about the Chernobyl disaster from the official sources of those days. It will give the Western readers a chilling sense of the magnitude of the event that brought down the almighty Soviet Union.

2004 marked the centennial of the birth of J Robert Oppenheimer, and brought historians and scholars, former students, nuclear physicists, and politicians together to celebrate this event. Oppenheimer's life and work became central to 20th century history as he spearheaded the development of the atomic bomb that ended World War II. This book provides a spectrum of interpretations of Oppenheimer's life and scientific achievements. It approaches the extraordinary scientist and teacher from many perspectives, chronicling the years from his boyhood through his role as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and afterwards. The book also discusses Oppenheimer's connection to New Mexico, which hosted two of the Manhattan Project's most crucial sites, and addresses his lasting impact on contemporary science, international politics, and the postwar age.

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• Defying The Odds
• Oppenheimer Reconsidered

During World War II, nations raced to construct the world's first nuclear weapon that would determine the future of the world. The Manhattan Project, one of the most significant achievements of the 20th century, was the culmination of America's war effort.
Today, although the issue of nuclear weapons frequently dominates world politics, few are aware of the history behind its development. Part I of this book, comprised of papers from the Atomic Heritage Foundation's Symposium on the Manhattan Project, recounts the history of this remarkable effort and reflects upon its legacy.
Most of the original structures of the Manhattan Project have been inaccessible to the public and in recent years, have been stripped of their equipment and slated for demolition. Part II proposes a strategy for preserving these historical artifacts for the public and future generations.

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• A History Worth Preserving
• Oppenheimer Reconsidered