| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Gerard J. DeGroot. The Bomb: A Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2005. Pp. xiii, 397. $27.95.
Gerard J. DeGroot's The Bomb is a curious book. As it is based almost entirely on published sources and on items skimmed off the Internet, it is not a thoroughly researched monograph. Nor, despite its ostensibly broad subject—humanity's interaction with nuclear weapons—is it a synthesis. Claiming that "the really big decisions about the Bomb were all made by around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis" (p. ix), the author gives little attention to the events of the more than four decades that followed. Furthermore, DeGroot does not show much interest in nuclear arms control and disarmament. "Some diplomatic historians will howl in protest," he writes, "but I don't consider the arms reduction talks all that important" (p. ix).	1
The book's greatest strength lies in its colorful anecdotes, which make good reading. Stringing them together, DeGroot provides interesting and powerful material on the effects of the atomic bombing of Japan, on civil defense, on pro-nuclear propaganda, on the horrible effects of radioactive contamination, on popular culture, and on the fantasies of government officials. He also writes with wit, though sometimes facetiously.	2
But the strengths of this book do not compensate for its weaknesses. There are numerous errors. DeGroot misidentifies Robert Jungk as a physicist. In one place, he says that Joseph Stalin died in 1952; in another, in 1953. The Non-Proliferation Treaty, DeGroot insists incorrectly, "simply prohibited proliferation to previously non-nuclear countries" (p. 296). In addition, he declares inaccurately that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was "ratified" (p. 327) in 1996.	. . .

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