Didier Alcante

Laurent-Frédéric Bollée

From the Big Bang to Hiroshima, the incredible story of the most disastrous weapon ever invented

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, an explosive charge of more than 15 kilotons fell on the city of Hiroshima. Tens of thousands of people were pulverized, and everything within four square miles was instantly destroyed. A deluge of flames and ash had just caused Japan’s greatest trauma and changed the course of modern warfare and life on Earth forever. The world was horrified by the existence of the bomb—the first weapon of mass destruction. But how could such an appalling tool be invented? To answer this question, Alcante, Laurent-Frédéric Bollée, and Denis Rodier return to the origins of its main component, uranium, and shed light on the scientific discoveries around this element and its uses both civilian and military. Sifting through the history, from Katanga to Japan, through Germany, Norway, the USSR, and New Mexico,The Bomb is a succession of incredible but true stories. Alcante, Bollée, and Rodier have created an exhaustive and definitive work of nonfiction that details the stories of the unsung players as well as the remarkable men and women who are at the crux of its history and the events that followed.