Three Books in One
Craig Nelson has really written three
books. The first one on the history of nuclear physics from 1890 – 1960 and
physicists involved is terrific. The second one is on the role of nuclear
weapons during the Cold War and here his biases show and he leaves much to be
desired. The third book embedded in “Radiance” is a history of nuclear power
where he emphasizes the three big disasters of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and
Fukushima which highlights the incompetence and the corruption of the nuclear
industry. Here he is on pretty solid ground. And he recognizes that despite the
disasters nuclear power might in the long run be better than carbon burning
power plants.
His history of the science is easy to
follow for the lay reader and he draws great insights into the personalities of
Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szillard,
John von Neumann and Otto Hahn. He is at his best when he discusses the life
and work of Lise Meitner who rightly deserves credit for her Nobel Prize work
with Otto Hahn in splitting the atom. Einstein rightly called her “our (meaning
German) Curie.” Also of note is his
discussion of the coincidence of so many leading physicists and mathematicians
all being born in early 1900s Budapest. What was in the Danube at that time?
Where he goes astray is in his views on
the Cold War. To him Russia is always reacting to moves by the United States.
Yet nowhere in the book is a discussion of the massive Soviet build-up that
took place in the 1970s. His villain is Edward Teller, the co-developer of thermo-nuclear
weaponry and the instigator of Reagan’s strategic defense initiative (SDI)
known as “Star Wars”. His animus towards Teller goes back 1940s Los Alamos and
his testimony critical of Oppenheimer during his security clearance hearing. To
be sure Teller had his faults, but Nelson goes overboard. Nelson also fails to
understand that a less than perfect SDI would have great deterrent value
because it would increase the uncertainty with respect to a first strike.
So the way I would score it would be 5
stars for the history of science section, 4 stars for nuclear power and 3 stars
for the Cold War portion. Net, net 4 stars.
