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The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Richard Rhodes · 1986 · Simon & Schuster
A Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the scientists and the Manhattan Project that built the first nuclear weapons. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called it his favorite book and has assigned it to employees.
Cover image: Open Library.
Summary
First published by Simon & Schuster in 1986, the book covers the scientific discoveries of the early twentieth century that led to nuclear fission, the Manhattan Project, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a June 2026 Bloomberg interview with Emily Chang, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei named it his favorite book. Foreign Affairs has reported that Amodei assigns the book to Anthropic employees.
Summary based on the publisher's page ↗
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About the author
Richard Rhodes
Richard Rhodes (born 1937) is an American historian, journalist, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, best known for The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), which won the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. He later wrote three further volumes of nuclear history, including Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.
Source: Wikipedia ↗