Non Fiction Review: The Bomb

Kelsey

Bomb:The Race to Build --and Steal-- the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon Review

Sheinkin, S., & Colvin, J. (n.d.). Bomb: The race to build--and steal--the world's most dangerous weapon.

     The nonfiction book written by Steve Sheinkin is about the production of the atomic bomb, which can be deduced from the title of the story. The story begins with a bit about Gold to gain the reader’s interest. He is being discovered by the FBI for spying and giving information to the communist party. From there the story goes back to the discovery of Fission in Germany. The style of the book was very helpful to readers, because it was set up to be more of a narrative told by many people throughout the story’s timeline. The book gives focus to many aspects of the bombs development such as who built it, the roadblocks they hit along the way, people who were crucial to development, spies who aided Russia and their reads for doing so, the impact of the war on development and resources, Germany’s attempts to build the bomb including how other countries interceded with those efforts, and The USSR’s ability to obtain the information needed and thus build and test a bomb in a very small time frame. The set up of the book allowed one to learn about influential people such as Oppenheimer, the Secretary of War, Truman, Gold, Hall, Fuchs, etc. the end of the book emphasizes the changes that occurred and the scary truth that remains now that the world has been building and collecting as much atomic weaponry as they can. The last line of the book I found to be very gripping: “In the end, this is a difficult story to sum up. The making of the atomic bomb is one of history’s most amazing examples of teamwork and genius and poise under pressure. But it’s also the story of how humans created a weapon capable of wiping our species off the planet. It’s a story with no end in sight. And, like it or not, you’re in it.” (Sheinkin, pg. 236)

         There are many aspects of this book that help it to motivate the reader. One piece is the authors ability to transition between people and places so seamlessly. I continued to understand the information, and my interest in the topic never diminished because I learned so much and gained so much perspective on the topic. Another great aspect of this book is the “non text book feel” of this book. The writers of history are the winners of war and often that creates biased perspectives to allow the winning side to appear favorably to the world. In this book all perspectives are acknowledged and all biases are considered. This allows the reader to make up his/her mind about the people being written about. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to any young person middle school and up. This author did a powerful job of giving the reader as much information as possible, but in terms at are understandable and well explained. By reading this a young person can gain not only the content, but also an understanding that every side and each person has their own perspective on a story. In a situation there is not always right and wrong or good and bad.

More Resources

http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/beyond-the-textbook/25484
http://www.atomicheritage.org/history/using-atomic-bomb-1945
http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bombing-of-hiroshima-and-nagasaki/videos/atomic-bomb
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/nazis-and-the-bomb.html