Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

Includes 94 archival photographs and a glossary with brief descriptions of the hundreds of people interviewed and discussed in the book. Author Richard Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his previous atomic tome, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.

Product Description
Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.

This book is essential to understanding a critical period of world history that is no less relevant now that the Cold War is over. The picture this provides of the scientists and administrators of the weapons teams on both sides is fascinating and reveals new evidence and clearer perspectives on issues that many of us grew up thinking about, such as the trial of the Rosenbergs and the effort to tar Oppenheimer's reputation.

The only area in which I found myself seriously questioning Rhodes's conclusions (perhaps unfairly, since 7 years and some key events have transpired since he wrote them), was in the area of nuclear terrorism and its deterrence.

An engrossing read.


gripping history read   October 27, 2005
James W. Picht (Louisiana, USA)
26 out of 26 found this review helpful

Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb is a fascinating historical work that reads almost like a novel; perhaps a particularly technical Clancy novel, but a novel nevertheless. It targets a general audience and balances the consequent need for clarity with depth and technical detail, and with great success.

Rhodes starts by taking us through America's Manhattan Project, a subject he dealt with in depth in his earlier book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. This time he focuses on the political elements of the project and with Soviet espionage. Klaus Fuchs is a major character in Dark Sun; in TMAB, which deals in much more depth with the scientific and technical problems behind atom bomb development, Fuchs has only a minor role. Here the scene switches back and forth between the U.S. and the USSR, where Igor Kurchatov takes charge of the Soviet nuclear program under secret police head Lavrenti Beria.

The early focus on espionage and Soviet work is important in this book; the subtitle, The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, refers to the political impetus behind the bomb, not the scientific and technical issues. There were formidable technical difficulties in the design of the first hydrogen bomb, but nothing that would warrant the same in-depth examination of basic science that appears in the earlier book. It becomes clear in the course of Dark Sun that the making of thermonuclear weapons was driven by politics, not military need or science (not to minimize the role of politics in atomic bomb development, but that was also the result of extravagantly brilliant scientists pursuing basic and often unexpected research in physics). And much of that political impetus was the result of American shock that the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb as soon as they did, years sooner than American scientists and policy makers believed that they could. Hence the importance of Fuchs and Beria.

Also prominent in this book is Edward Teller. His obsession with thermonuclear weapons seems a powerful force behind American policy development. It's always seemed to me that Ulam was as much the father of the hydrogen bomb as Teller, but Rhodes convinces me that Teller deserves that sobriquet on the basis of his political efforts more than on the basis of his technical efforts. As the making of the atomic bomb was the result of extraordinary scientific and technical achievement, the making of the hydrogen bomb was the result of extraordinary political will. Much of that will was Teller's.

That will was also destructive. The book closes with an examination of the fallout from obsession with the Soviet threat and the way that bomb research was pursued in this country. I think that Rhodes overestimates the costs of the nuclear arms race by misallocating them, and he draws too strong a link between thermonuclear research and America's fraying infrastructure. He also gives short shrift to the case that our obsession with the Soviet threat was almost inevitable and necessary given Soviet behavior and the opacity of their motives at the time. I think Rhodes' treatment of Teller betrays a certain bias. If there's a villain in this book it isn't Fuchs, but Teller. Teller's role in the destruction of Oppenheimer wasn't meaningless and it wasn't an episode of which he should be proud, but Teller wasn't the devil. He was a man motivated by fear, and it was a fear of forces and events he didn't create. Teller was even less responsible for the cold war than he was the scientific father of the hydrogen bomb. I think Rhodes could have found a better villain.

In the context of the book I think these objections are small points; putting them aside, I think this book is very good.



Why is this book so good?   August 7, 1999
mjonesman@aol.com (Kansas City)
20 out of 23 found this review helpful

This book gives you the strange feeling of being absolutely riveted to a dry and technical story line. It is woven with pure science but peppered with fascinating accounts of personal lives. One of my thoughts throughout the reading of this book was: "My god! Why isn't this material classified! How did this get published?" If you have any curiousity about how atomic and hydrogen bombs actually work, you won't have much to wonder about after reading this.

I'm not sure whether Richard Rhodes is a genius in his writing or whether these geeky scientists just happened to be utterly fascinating people, but I was totally absorbed by the lives and details of the physists as they struggled to make the bombs. Throw in the intrige of the american spies, giving away the U.S.'s most precious secrets for a naive and unfulfilled ideology, and Curtis LeMay's chilling "performance" as the mad SAC bomber and you have a story no writer could ever have concocted. The truth is stranger than fiction. All this against the backdrop of WWII and the Cold War history will change your perception of all the events of the past 60 years that you thought you were so familiar with.

I read this book before his earlier book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", which I will read soon. Richard Rhodes has been on a recent History Channel show too, and was very interesting on camera, as well. Enjoy!


Intriguing and terrifying tale of the ultimate weapon   January 22, 1997
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I have just finished Rhodes' "Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb". Some years ago I reluctantly finished his book on the Manhattan Project, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". I say reluctantly because the breadth of his scholarship was amazing and I did not want to leave when he had finished writing. Happily he has followed up with "Dark Sun". Rhodes weaves an engrossing account of the scientists who worked in the last days of WWII on the atomic bomb and their internal controversy on whether or not to pursue "the super", the hydrogen bomb. Against this he also describes the Soviet Union's attempts to rebuild their country while keeping pace with America. Russian scientists, though, were threatened with the paranoia of Stalin and his henchman Lavrentia Beria. Connecting the two continents is the espionage story of Klaus Fuchs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Harold Gold.

Rhodes blends the three narratives together, furnishing his own original scholarship, in a taut fashion which keeps one turning the pages. Rhodes also deals with the destruction of Robert Oppenheimer by his rival Edward Teller, whose insecurity and jealousy arguably started the destructive arms race. The most frightening aspect of this story, however, is the borderline insubordination of Gen. Curtis LeMay, commander of SAC, who urged Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy to preepmtively strike the Soviet Union.

Rhodes deftly mixes biography, history, science and social commentary in the intriguing tale and terrifying tale of the ultimate weapon. And it's all true. Highly recommended.


Detailed yet absolutely gripping   January 20, 1997
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Rhodes' earlier "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" won a Pulitzer prize; I thought this was even better. The first part is an account of Soviet espionage into the Manhattan project; Rhodes lets us in on all the mundane details while allowing the inherent drama to come through in full force.

The second part was even more of a revelation: I never thought the nature of the "technically sweet" innovation that saved the H-bomb project would be revealed to the public during my lifetime, but it's spelled out here. I also never thought I'd understand in detail how an H-bomb works, but Rhodes makes it both comprehensible and fascinating.

Chapter 24 is the heart of the book--a description of the Mike shot, the world's first thermonuclear explosion. Don't start reading it if you have to go somewhere soon. A classic case of "I couldn't put it down".