Wow. What. A. Tome. This truly is a comprehensive history of the US, British, German, and Japanese nuclear weapon development, starting not with the Manhattan Project but with late 19th-century breakthroughs in nuclear and atomic physics. Reading this, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to about the history of not only the bomb but all of the understanding of the nature of the atomic nucleus that was necessary to split it. Politics, chemistry, physics, warfare, and industry: all aspects of the development are captured.