Bomb: The Race to Build - And Steal - The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon was published on September 4, 2012. It was written by American author Steve Sheinkin. The book is not a story about the Atomic Bomb, but it is the story of the Atomic Bomb. Steve Sheinkin retells the story of the Atomic Bomb and important events involved with the bomb so it is easy to understand for the reader, rather than creating a story around it. He uses real interviews and testimonies from first hand witnesses, as well as primary sources of information, including FBI and government documents.
Paul Boyer, the author of By the Bomb’s Early Light, has an unusually high level of expertise on the subject of atomic bombs. He is an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is at the top of his field, and is a perfect candidate to write this book. Not only will he be an expert in the science of atomic bombs, but he will know the history of this kind of technology. Paul Boyer’s main idea in this book is more of a discussion of Nuclear Policy and a look back at the nuclear age.
That fact that the atomic bomb had to be dropped at all is a shocking fact to accept. In the modern era, it is challenging to understand the sentiments of America's leaders during that time period. The passages "A Petition to the President of the United States," "The Decision to Drop the Bomb," and "Speech to the Association of Los Alamos Scientists" illustrate the thought process of American citizens and the government very effectively. They each go into the miniscule details in order to assist the readers in understanding what compulsion the government had to drop the bomb, and how civilians reacted to this. It is due to passages like these that people in the modern day can continue to acknowledge America's past and decisions.
When Paul Fussell admits to the atrocious nature of the atom bomb in his essay, ‘Thank God for the Atom Bomb,’ he appears to weaken the central emotional argument of his piece: that the destruction of Hiroshima is an intricate issue that one must look upon from a perspective which considers both sides. Paul Fussell makes the point men had been through hell for some years: “Why allow one more American high school kid to see his intestines blown out of his body and spread before him in the dirt while he screams when we can end the whole thing just like that?” Here he belives the concept of taking thousands of lives save many thousands more is much more important and that the dropping of the bomb was for the greater good. Fussell’s vivid descriptions, “not for the weak-stomached” seem to work against him, creating intense
The first atomic bomb was exploded in New Mexico on July sixteenth, 1945. In Ray Bradbury’s “Dark They Were and Golden Eyed,” the humans came to Mars because “the atom bomb will [destroy] Earth” (Bradbury 480). This story is connected to the historical event known as the atomic bomb. Research shows “Albert Einstein came up with many of the theories that helped scientists in making the atomic bomb” (Barrett).
In Paul Fussell’s essay “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” , he argues the importance of experience when thinking about the use of the atom bomb. He begins his essay with a verse: “In life, experience is the great teacher. In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.” This is the basis of his argument, that those who did not experience the war firsthand could not understand. They did not know the horrors the soldiers went through.
The first perspective that came out of the dropping of the bombs is known as the traditional, or the orthodox perspective. This perspective expresses the idea that the bombs were needed to bring about the end of World WarIIand save countless numbers of lives. This was the claim that President Truman publicly expressed and is believed by numerous historians. One of these key historians is Paul Fussell, who clearly expressed his perspective in his famous 1981 essay, ‘Thank God For the Atom Bomb’. Fussell strongly supported the idea that the only way to quickly end the war and save lives was to drop the atomic bombs on Japan, “The purpose of the bombs wasn't to ‘punish people' but to stop war.”
Throughout history the atomic bomb has been looked at in amazement or horror. The atomic bomb has earned a gaze of horror for all the lives lost. The atomic bomb was an extremist act highly that should not have happened for many reasons. The atomic bomb was created in order to have a counterattack against Germany if they used such a device on the Allied powers.
Trinity Response The attempt to illustrate the making of the atomic bomb, which is one of America’s greatest successes, can be challenging. However, Jonathan Fetter-Vorm does a great job at depicting the history of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Japan in his graphic novel, Trinity. Fetter-Vorm provides a visual representation of the history and science that contributed to the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The story of the Manhattan Project makes me uncomfortable because it displays the suffering of innocent Japanese citizens, the American idolization of the bomb, and the chain of events that followed the bombs and the Japanese surrender.
“The Manhattan Project moved from theory to practice in 1943. The physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer directed the young scientists at Los Alamos in designing a nuclear-fission bomb” (Goldfield 789). “On July 16, 1945 the first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico now called Ground Zero” (Atomic Bomb Museum). After the major explosion physicists noticed how powerful the bomb was that it could destroy worlds.
The facts you present regarding the creation of the atomic bomb is extremely informative. Now, the creation of the atomic bomb came about due to the fact the United States is seeking a way to end the war in the Pacific. Furthermore, when the project first came online, the government keeps it so secretive that the scientist across the nation is having a hard time making advancements. Consequently, Oppenheimer seeks to bring experts together to allow for the sharing of information which results in the creation of a working atomic bomb. Now, a common argument is that the release of these two bombs is the most inhuman event of the war.
These bombs being dropped inevitably forced the japanese emperor to surrender themselves. This is the only time in history where atomic bombs have been dropped in a wartime effort. In early 1939 the scientific community figured out that German physicists learned how to split uranium atoms. The making of the atomic bomb started in late 1941, when the U.S started there atomic weapons department to counter Nazi Germany working on theirs.development
In 1939, the scientific community, specifically German physicists had learned the secrets of splitting a uranium atom (The Manhattan Project” 2015). America realized that Adolf Hitler’s Germany obtained a massive amount of scientific talent. With their access had necessary raw materials and knowledge of the splitting of the uranium atom, they had the industrial capacity to produce an atomic bomb(“Manhattan Project”2014). The atomic bomb would eventually become the turning point of weaponry during World War II. On October 11, 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt received a letter from Albert Einstein about the splitting of the uranium atom which could be beneficial in developing weapons for America during World War II.
During World War II, the first atomic bomb used in warfare, had been dropped on Hiroshima by an American B-29 bomber, the 'Enola Gay'. On August 6, 1945, President Harry Truman tells the United States that an atomic weapon has been detonated in Japan. The atomic bomb had more than 20,000 tons of TNT, and more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam", the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of war. On August 15, 1945, Hirohito the emperor of Japan, made a broadcast over radio announcing surrender.
Thesis statement: Though many speculate that the act of dropping the atomic bomb on Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) while not doing so on Europe (Germany and Italy) was racially motivated, racism played little to no role in these bombings. The United States of America and her allies were willing to end World War II at any cost, had the atomic bombs been available they would have been deployed in Europe. In the 1940’s there is no doubt that the United States of America was engulfed by mass anti-Japanese hysteria which inevitably bled over into America’s foreign policy. During this period Japanese people living in both Japan and the United States of America were seen as less that human.
