[Canaday has] transformed the events and facts into engaging literary works, no small achievement. . . . An ambitious work of poetry.--Rain Taxi
Description
With technical mastery and remarkable empathy, Canaday introduces readers to the people involved in the creation and testing of the first atomic bomb, from initial theoretical conversations to the secretive work at Los Alamos. Critical Assembly also includes brief biographies, notes, and a bibliography for further exploration about this critical event in world history.
Genres
Reviews
Most of the men and women who invented the first atomic bombs are gone now, but the moral and mortal complexity of their work continues to challenge us. These moving, resonant poems revivify them even as they open that complexity to our understanding.--Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Most of the men and women who invented the first atomic bombs are gone now, but the moral and mortal complexity of their work continues to challenge us. These moving, resonant poems revivify them even as they open that complexity to our understanding.--Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Who ever thought that a nuclear holocaust could be turned into poetry? But here it is. A cornucopia of apocalyptic delights. End of the world poetry by many of the people who created its possibility--Leo Szilard, Albert Einstein, Otto Frisch, Robert Oppenheimer, Eugene Wigner, Edward Teller, et al. It's an answer to Mark Twain's purported dictum: History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. Or, in the words of Manhattan Project physicist Philip Morrison on the eve of the first atomic blast: 'Only the past is certain. But the future rhymes.' John Canaday has created a remarkable book. Perverse, original, outstanding, and gut-wrenching.--Errol Morris, Academy Award-winning director of The Fog of War
