Search results for ""author martin miller""

The intellectual adventure of developing the atomic bomb at Los Alamos has been well documented, but the fact is that 90% of the Manhattan Project expenditures went to produce the exotic nuclear explosive materials required. That is the story told here, a story of the brilliant harnessing of American industry to build a coordinated network of huge production plants using technology that was being developed even as the plants themselves were rising. It is the story of multiple, complex production methods being pursued simultaneously without knowing any of them would ultimately work, a story of daring gambles and their ultimate redemption. It is the story of the frantic building of subsequent, larger plants that were worked to the limits of their safe operation during the Cold War arms race. This is a story told by the author in historical narrative and new high-resolution photographs of fast-disappearing relics.

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How and why the US created 70,000 nuclear weapons during the Cold War . The Nuclear Age properly began with the discovery of the nucleus by Ernest Rutherford in 1911, but its impact on civilization began with the use of atomic bombs against Japan in WWII. The development of atomic bombs forever changed the world. From having a single bomb immediately after the Nagasaki attack, the United States would go on to build some 70,000 nuclear bombs over the course of the Cold War. The colossal brinkmanship with the Soviet Union threatened each country’s people. Why were so many bombs thought to be necessary? How did the infrastructure come about to enable the delicate business of building and deploying so many bombs? This book answers these questions and more; through high-quality photographs, the full flowering of the warheads and delivery systems of the nuclear age are shown in chilling detail.

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