| Description |
xvi, 464 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
1. Ioffe's Institute -- 2. Nuclear Prehistory -- 3. Reacting to Fission -- 4. Making a Decision -- 5. Getting Started -- 6. Hiroshima -- 7. The Post-Hiroshima Project -- 8. The Premises of Policy --9. The Atomic Industry -- 10. The Atomic Bomb -- 11. War and the Atomic Bomb -- 12. The War of Nerves --13. Dangerous Relations -- 14. The Hydrogen Bomb --15. After Stalin -- 16. The Atom and Peace |
| Summary |
This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central but hitherto secret element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program - today environmental damage, a network of secret cities, and a huge stockpile of unwanted weapons |
|
In engrossing detail, David Holloway tells us how Stalin launched a crash atomic program only after the Americans bombed Hiroshima and showed that the bomb could be built; how the information handed over to the Soviets by Klaus Fuchs helped in the creation of their bomb; how the scientific intelligentsia, which included such men as Andrei Sakharov, interacted with the police apparatus headed by the suspicious and menacing Lavrentii Beria; what steps Stalin took to counter U.S. atomic diplomacy; how the nuclear project saved Soviet physics and enabled it to survive as an island of intellectual autonomy in a totalitarian society; and what happened when, after Stalin's death, Soviet scientists argued that a nuclear war might extinguish all life on earth |
| Analysis |
Nuclear weapons History |
|
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Subject |
Nuclear weapons -- Government policy -- Soviet Union -- History.
|
|
Nuclear energy -- Research -- Soviet Union -- History.
|
|
Nuclear weapons -- Government policy -- United States.
|
|
Science and state -- Soviet Union -- History.
|
| SUBJECT |
USSR -- Foreign relations.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125747
|
| LC no. |
94008216 |
| ISBN |
0300060564 |
|
