A marvelous epic, told from the very beginning of atomic science all the way to the horrors unleashed on Japan. To give you a sense of the pacing in this book, it's over 250 pages before scientists even realize they can split the atom—and Rhodes manages to churn that process of discovery into great non-fiction storytelling.

For all the physicists involved, the Manhattan Project's accomplishments were mostly in engineering and scale. Outside of innovative work done modeling the high-speed dynamics of explosives (to create the lenses that symmetrically compressed the core of Fat Man), most of the science underpinning atomic bombs was in place years before the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some of the project physicists were even beginning work on the hydrogen bomb.

But while Rhodes begins with an amazing spate of scientific explanation and exposition, his strongest storytelling may be the last forty pages of the book, dedicated to the aftermath in Hiroshima. Large chunks are the vivid and horrifying testimony of survivors, and Rhodes paces them so well that they become not deadening but newly scary with every revelation. I made the mistake of finishing the book right before I went to bed, and awoke at 7am with nightmares, which hasn't happened from a book in.. at least a decade?