Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin, is about the nuclear arms race that happened between the United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union during World War II. The book follows people like Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb” and expert physicist, Knut Haukelid, a Norse spy who had lost nearly everything from the Germans now occupying his country but his family and will to make a change, and even Soviet Spies such as Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs, Soviet sympathetics who would change warfare as we know it by using revolutionary spying techniques and secretly undermining U.S intelligence to advance on the U.S.S.R’s progress on building their own nuclear bomb. Bomb shows the relentlessness of many people in what seems to be a work of spy fiction and adventure, but in truth took place in our world less than a century ago.
This book was astonishing to me, pulling me in and demonstrating a work of art based on incredible true stories that kept my nose in the book for hours without putting it down. However, while I was reading, I noticed many central ideas, themes, and social issues in Bomb, and have recorded my findings in my notes, which can be observed below.
One central idea that I found was that it was tough to find competent and trustworthy scientists to work on the Manhattan project. There are many examples of this throughout the story, and over time, I was able to form a list of trustworthy and untrustworthy people who worked on or spied on the Los Alamos project. As you can see, while there were many fitting and extraordinary workers, associates and allies working for progress on the quest to build an atomic bomb, there were also several Soviet spies who were well trusted, and didn’t want to see the project fall, but to pass on key information about it to the growing international influence that was the Soviet Union.
Another key point that I found was, despite their origin, many different physicists and scientists came together from all over the world to work on one project that could potentially end the massive world conflict tearing down civilization and human rights. The scientists all made staggering progress within quick succession, from Enrico Fermi’s radiation chain reaction experiment taking place in 1942, to the first nuclear bomb test taken in New Mexico in 1945, not even three years after the chain reaction hypothesis had been proved and only seven years after nuclear fission was discovered. These scientists all worked together despite where they came from, and, with a common enemy and goal, they accomplished that goal and both saved the world from Germany with its nuclear bombs and ended the U.S’s war over the Pacific with Japan. Steve Sheinkin is clearly trying to tell us that if people collaborating, no matter how contrasting their genesis is, if people are using their heads and putting their differences aside, humans can accomplish anything.
Finally, a motif that I noticed in the story led to both a social issue and a potential theme in Sheinkin’s writings. A repeated element that appeared in the story again and again was betrayal and deceit, willingness to do go to bizarre extremes for people to pass information among themselves or to sabotage others to delay or stop progress. Again and again, I watched spy craft and deception expose themselves before me as missions took place, staging from Norse saboteurs ruining a German heavy water facility in Europe to American men and women betraying their government and people by keeping tabs and spying on the Manhattan Project to pass information to the Soviet Union. Betrayal after betrayal were presented and portrayed throughout the entire story, and by the end, it’s clear that a definite social issue presented in Bomb was that info was being leaked repeatedly and disloyalty was shown repetitively, suggesting that we as humans need to watch who we’re associating with and to make sure that we’re not trusting the wrong people, lest we are proved wrong in trusting that someone and lose something valuable. This is presented again in the book, with Robert Oppenheimer, the head scientist and effective leader of the Manhattan Project, being essentially harassed and suspected of being a traitor of his country because one of his friends had recently unveiled himself as a Communist sympathetic, and this connection shed many problems on Oppenheimer and nearly ended up ruining his life. So, with these two points, it seems as though Sheinkin is attempting to shed some light on the fact and social issue that, you need to keep track of and watch your associations, for the wrong connections can breed suspicions from fellow coworkers, friends, and your government as well as possibly leak private or even national security information that could damage you and your reputation.
Thanks a ton for reading my entire blogpost! I found this book to be intriguing and informational, and it left my nose constantly in between the pages, absorbed by the fantastic and true story that unfolded relatively recently. If you’re interested or want to read Bomb, I suggest you read it. A link can be found above in case you gain further interest. Thank you!
