Stalin and the bomb : the Soviet Union and atomic energy, 1939-1956

Holloway, David 1943- (Author).

Summary: 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.

Record details

ISBN: 0300060564 :
Physical Description: print
xvi, 464 p., [12] leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.
Publisher: New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, 1994.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Ioffe's Institute -- Nuclear prehistory -- Reacting to fission -- Making a decision -- Getting started -- Hiroshima -- The Post-Hiroshima Project -- The Premises of policy -- The atomic industry -- The atomic bomb -- War and the atomic bomb -- The War of nerves -- Dangerous relations -- The hydrogen bomb -- After Stalin -- The atom and peace.