Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #123585 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

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 )

Tibor Fischer, Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2007 Tibor Fischer, Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2007
"a meticulous account of weapons of mass destruction and the science and scientists behind them...always readable and entertaining"

The Church Times, 23 November 2007
"The narrative is gripping and morally astute... at times, it becomes a cross between Bill Bryson and Umberto Eco"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Book!
I bought this on a bit of a whim after reading the blurb on the back. I am so glad I did as it is an amazing book which charts the history of the nuclear bomb from the very first inceptions back with Marie Curie all the way through to the present day. The twist is that this is a sort of history book which also looks at the effect these weapons have had on the psyche of the populous over the years through the mediums of Science Fiction and normal media as well. As a child of the 70s/80s who thought that the world would end I found this book amazing!

An important book for our times
Doomsday Men offers a sobering look at the cultural, political and scientific factors influencing the development of superweapons in the 20th century. Smith brilliantly shows how the literary creations of H. G. Wells and others, in works such a "The World Set Free," inspired nuclear scientists to pursue the development of weapons so utterly destructive that they were meant never to be be used. Yet they were, twice, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, much to the horror of scientists such as Szilard and Einstein who advocated the development of atomic bombs only for preventing the Nazis from gaining a monopoly on the dreadful secret. Instead of the utopias imagined by Wells and the world government advocated by Einstein, the world launched into a sinister Cold War and a continued arms race, which has led, even until the present, to a diversion of needed resources into the development and maintenance of expensive and horrifically lethal armaments. Smith's book is a meticulously researched tour-de-force that offers readers an important glimpse into the rationale behind the creation of the world's nuclear arsenal, as well as a splendid examination of how culture and science interact. All in all, a highly worthwhile read.

Informatove but flawed
Bought this as I have a real interest in science and the cold war, but most of the book appears to be a biography of Leo Szilard interspersed with synopses of phrophetic science-fiction books. Undoubtedly Mr Szilard is one of the key figures, but using him as the centrepiece of the book rather changes the focus and gets it a little bogged down in the minutiae of his life where it could be ranging over other parts of the subject. It's still got a lot of information in it that I had not encountered before, but it should have been called Doomsday Man: The life of Leo Szilard. A bit disappointing in the end.