Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956

Fantastic Book.

nice

Livro muito bem detalhado, chegando a ser muito cansativo em algumas partes mas que no final vale muito a pena a leitura. Imagino que esse livro seria muito mais completo, como o próprio autor nos fala, se a Rússia liberasse mais documentos sobre a época.

A detailed and scholarly review of the scientific intellgentsia in the Soviet Union, its relation to military projects and the vagaries of political life during the period 1930-1956. Gives an excellent idea of the practical problems that the Soviets faced in developing nuclear weapons, and the key roles played by a few members of the scientific intellgentsia.

I teach a course in "Strategic Weapons and Arms Control" and found lots of new data here. The author goes into a bit too much detail (for me) on the science of nuclear weapons, but his discussion of the impact of the bomb on the world scene is first rate. One issue is that he discounts the testimony of former Soviet intel officer Sudoplatov that Robert Oppenheimer, among others, was a witting source of information for the Soviets on the bomb program, but he does not provide any evidence for his assumption.

I just finished it today. A very interesting read. Probably more emphasis on the political than the technology aspects. Ya read this book and those by Richard Rhodes and it makes one wonder how the U.S and the USSR avoided atomic warfare in the decades after WW2.