PD Smith

Publishers Weekly

07 January 2008 | cold war, Doomsday Men, Oppenheimer, Szilard | 4 comments

Pub­lish­ers Week­ly gave Dooms­day Men a starred review this week. This is what they had to say:

Weav­ing togeth­er biog­ra­phy, sci­ence and art, Smith has cre­at­ed a com­pelling his­to­ry of physics in the 20th cen­tu­ry, focus­ing on the long-last­ing search for ever more destruc­tive weapons—from the devel­op­ment of chem­i­cal war­fare in World War I Ger­many through the arms race of the Cold War. Explain­ing “why some of the most gift­ed and ide­al­is­tic men of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry spent so much effort try­ing to destroy the plan­et,” Smith’s dynam­ic, riv­et­ing nar­ra­tive reveals details of peo­ple, places and events that are rarely cov­ered in text­books, bring­ing to life not just sci­en­tists like Robert Oppen­heimer and Leo Szi­lard, but the hor­rors of chem­i­cal and atom­ic war­fare. Time and again, “it seemed that a giant leap for­ward for sci­ence also meant a step back­ward for mankind,” and con­tem­po­rary film and fic­tion echoed this sen­ti­ment with “clear sign­s… [of] gen­uine resent­ment towards sci­en­tists for betray­ing the high ideals of their pro­fes­sion and, indeed, the best inter­ests of human­i­ty.” Iron­i­cal­ly, the goal of many of these sci­en­tists was peace, not war: “Many sci­en­tists were con­vinced that the ter­ri­ble real­i­ty of atom­ic super­weapons would force nations to resolve their dis­putes and work for world peace.” Cap­ti­vat­ing and thor­ough­ly ref­er­enced, this chron­i­cle should inter­est a wide audi­ence, from sci­ence and his­to­ry buffs to arm­chair politi­cos.

4 comments so far:

  1. Paul Halpern | 07 January 2008

    Well done, Peter! That’s great news!

  2. PD Smith | 08 January 2008

    Thanks Paul!

  3. indeterminacy | 24 January 2008

    Hey, con­grat­u­la­tions! Just now I saw your title “Ger­man Lit­er­a­ture and the World-view of Sci­ence…” in the side­bar — I have to check that out and see where I stand with all the Ger­man lit­er­a­ture I’ve read. (Can’t hard­ly escape it when you live in Ger­many).

  4. PD Smith | 24 January 2008

    You’ll find it con­tains plen­ty of Ger­man lit­er­a­ture — enjoy!