Inventing Los Alamos: The Growth of an Atomic Community

Rating:
Summary: A Social History of an Instant Town
Review: From a remote, very remote ranch in the mountains of New Mexico, Los Alamos became an instant city in 1943 as it grew to six thousand people, among them the best physical scientists from around the world. With them came thousands of other workers, and their families. Los Alamos became the birthplace of the Atomic Age as it revolutionized modern weaponry and science.

Rather than being exclusively scientific - as are a number of other books -- Inventing Los Alamos concentrates on the people. It uses the oral history point of view to create a social history of the people and the culture that developed.

The book covers not only the early World War II days of developing the Atomic bomb, but also the Cold War Era, and even a short section on the work being conducted at the site now.

This is a most interesting account of the side effects of the scientific work done there.

Rating:
Summary: Birthplace of the Atomic Age
Review: This is a great book for anyone remotely interested in the development of America's nuclear program and especially the city known as the birthplace of the Atomic Age. What makes the book unique is both the reader friendly narrative style of the writing and the author's focusing on the establishment of the town and men and women that created a livable community out of wartime chaos while confronting the myriad of social and cultural issues of the Atomic Age prior to the rest of the country...or world. A fresh look at the development of the Atomic Age culture.