The Making of the Atomic Bomb

The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Author(s)	Richard Rhodes
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	Manhattan Project
Publisher	Simon and Schuster
Publication date	1986
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	886 (hc)
ISBN	0671441337
OCLC Number	231117096
Dewey Decimal	623.4/5119/09 19
LC Classification	QC773 .R46 1986
Followed by	Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987) is a non-fiction book by Richard Rhodes. It won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, the 1987 National Book Award for Nonfiction and a National Book Critics Circle Award. The 900-page book is a narrative of the history of the people and events during World War II from the discoveries leading to the science of nuclear fission in the 1930s, through the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Praised by both historians and former Los Alamos weapon scientists alike, the book is considered a general authority on early nuclear weapons history, as well as the development of modern physics in general, during the first half of the 20th century. Nobel Laureate I. I. Rabi, one of the prime participants in the dawn of the atomic age, called the book "an epic worthy of Milton. Nowhere else have I seen the whole story put down with such elegance and gusto and in such revealing detail and simple language which carries the reader through wonderful and profound scientific discoveries and their application."^{[citation needed]}