Books like Uranium Wars by Amir D. Aczel

An exhaustive account of the discovery, design, and deployment of the atomic bomb, tracing its rapid development from early nuclear science to the Manhattan Project and the first bombings of Japan.

The fascinating story of the most powerful source of energy the earth can yieldUranium is a common element in the earth’s crust and the only naturally occurring mineral with the power to end all life on the planet. After World War II, it reshaped the global order—whoever could master uranium could master the world.Marie Curie gave us hope that uranium would be a miracle panacea, but the Manhattan Project gave us reason to believe that civilization would end with apocalypse. Slave labor camps in Africa and Eastern Europe were built around mine shafts and America would knowingly send more than six hundred uranium miners to their graves in the name of national security.Fortunes have been made from this yellow dirt; massive energy grids have been run from it. Fear of it panicked the American people into supporting a questionable war with Iraq and its specter threatens to create another conflict in Iran. Now, some are hoping it can help avoid a global warming catastrophe.In Uranium, Tom Zoellner takes readers around the globe in this intriguing look at the mineral that can sustain life or destroy it.

A sweeping historical account of U.S. government experiments on human subjects in nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare from World War II to the present, examining policy, ethics, and secrecy.

"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." "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."--BOOK JACKET.