- Paperback: 576 pages
- Publisher: Penguin UK (Oct 28 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0141019158
- ISBN-13: 978-0141019154
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 399 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #691,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Weaving together biography, science and art, Smith has created a compelling history of physics in the 20th century, focusing on the long-lasting search for ever more destructive weapons-from the development of chemical warfare in World War I Germany through the arms race of the Cold War. Explaining "why some of the most gifted and idealistic men of the twentieth century spent so much effort trying to destroy the planet," Smith's dynamic, riveting narrative reveals details of people, places and events that are rarely covered in textbooks, bringing to life not just scientists like Robert Oppenheimer and Leo Szilard, but the horrors of chemical and atomic warfare. Time and again, "it seemed that a giant leap forward for science also meant a step backward for mankind," and contemporary film and fiction echoed this sentiment with "clear signs... of genuine resentment towards scientists for betraying the high ideals of their profession and, indeed, the best interests of humanity." Ironically, the goal of many of these scientists was peace, not war: "Many scientists were convinced that the terrible reality of atomic superweapons would force nations to resolve their disputes and work for world peace." Captivating and thoroughly referenced, this chronicle should interest a wide audience, from science and history buffs to armchair politicos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Superb... it's his eye for revealing anecdotes and his ability to distil it all into lively prose that makes this a real pleasure to read Sunday Business Post Chillingly compelling New Scientist The gripping, untold story of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction TLS Packed with striking anecdotes... this is a readable, informative work exploring why intelligent men worked on such insane projects Metro 'A lively read packed with both information and anecdote ... It is a powerful reminder that weapons of mass destruction are still 'out there" Independent He puts the nuclear age into a new context, engagingly and excitingly Financial Times
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An outstanding history of the cultural impact of superweapons, Dec 9 2007
By Paul Halpern "Physicist and Writer" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon (Hardcover)
Doomsday Men is an impressively creative examination of how literature and philosophy influenced the development of superweapons, and how knowledge of their ghastly potential shaped, in turn, the cultural icons of the 20th century. It shows how those involved in the Manhattan Project differed greatly in their temperments and outlooks, and reached drastically different conclusions about the role of nuclear weapons after the Second World War was over. While some scientists, such as Leo Szilard, rallied for arms control, others, such as Herman Kahn, argued that the west should be prepared to accept massive casualties. Kahn's remarks, taken to their terrifying extreme, were incorporated into Kubrick's classic dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove, a film that occupies a central place in this book. Through colorful anecdotes and fascinating connections with popular culture, Smith helps bring the turbulent history of those frightening times to life. Doomsday Men offers a vital and intruging account of the mentality and culture of the Cold War.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Out of the libraries come the killers." - - Bertolt Brecht, "1940", Jan 26 2008
By Found Highways - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon (Hardcover)
In Brecht's "1940," the "latest inventions of the professors" probably didn't include the atomic bomb. Poison gas and rockets meant to kill civilians were horrific enough. But one of the surprising things (to me, at least) that P. D. Smith's Doomsday Men shows is how newspapers and popular science writing in Europe and America described atomic bombs and atomic power plants in detail decades before Hiroshima.Another interesting thing in Doomsday Men is how fiction writers and scientists inspired each other. Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895 and the next year H. G. Wells used "Roentgen vibrations" as the rationale for the Invisible Man's experiments. (Wells was the first to use the expression "atomic bomb.")
American science fiction magazines published stories about atomic energy years before Pearl Harbor.
In Germany Zukunftsromane ("future novels") and Weltuntergangsromane ("end-of-the-world stories") were popular. These stories influenced German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Hungarian physicists Leo Szilard and Edward Teller, two of the "Hungarian Quartet" that Doomsday Men is primarily about. Most of the best nuclear scientists in Berlin were Jewish and left Germany in the 1930s for Britain or the United States.
Fritz Haber, was an ultra-patriotic German-Jewish scientist who developed poison gas during World War I without any qualms. (After the Nazis took power, when Haber was a refuge in England, Ernest Rutherford refused to meet Haber, saying " 'he did not want to shake hands with the inventor of poison gas warfare.' ") Many of Haber's family were killed by Zyklon B gas at Auschwitz.
As the truth about the effects of atomic bombs and atomic testing became known, a new kind of story replaced the old pro-technology-at-any-cost stories in American science fiction magazines (where you rarely read about a Faust or a Frankenstein). Actually, it was a return to an older type of story.
Movies like Godzilla, Them!, The Amazing Colossal Man, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms were a return to the "deadly utopian dream" of turn-of-the-century fiction like H. G. Wells's The World Set Free or The War of the Worlds.
By the time of the modern era of ICBMs and hotlines, the tragic figure of Goethe's Faust had become Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, an amalgam of von Braun, Edward Teller, and others, who could only be comprehended as a joke, even though the joke was we're doomed.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Completely captivating, Jan 27 2010
By Twilight Princess - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Doomsday Men: The Real Dr. Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon (Hardcover)
Completely captivating from the first page, this book never ceases to surprise and enchant. A picturesque stroll through the interwoven history of science and fiction, I learned a lot about both while being thoroughly entertained. The cross-pollination between imagination and science has been more fruitful than I knew, and I definitely view the world differently since reading this book.Old enough to have done bomb drills in my early school days, but too young to have taken them very seriously, fear of nuclear annihilation was only on the outer fringes of my consciousness. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up entirely without such fear? I didn't know that fear of superweapons has been with us for far longer than the Cold War -- for about a century, in fact. P.D. Smith made me think about the important role this fear has played socially, politically, economically and culturally. I cannot overstate how highly I recommend this book to anyone - it is not just for geeks.
Like all the best books, Doomsday Men is best devoured whole and then gone back over to be savoured slowly -- the pleasure goes on long after the first reading. Not simply a history book, it is filled with thought-provoking parallels that are entirely relevant for today. A deadly serious subject is treated with erudition and rare charm. I cannot recall any other time when my ignorance was so delightfully dispelled.
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