Dark Sun Audiobook By Richard Rhodes cover art

Dark Sun

The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

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Dark Sun

By: Richard Rhodes
Narrated by: Jacques Roy
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Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War.

Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.

©2012 Richard Rhodes (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio Americas History History & Philosophy Military Military Science Nuclear Warfare Science United States Weapons & Warfare Soviet Union Russia Cold War War Air Force
Well-told Story • Fast-paced Narrative • Captivating Story • Outstanding Research • Detailed Writing
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after reading the previous book by this author, this does not feel that great. still, he provides lots of detailed information on the Russian program, and specifically the development of the hydrogen bomb and the start of the cold war. the narration makes it really hard to listen to this book, it is almost a whisper.

Not as good as the History of Atomic Bomb. Narration could be better.

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The story occasionally gets bogged down on too many details and characters but overall a good historical account from the end of WW2 through the precarious Cold War years for the US & USSR

The real back story of the Cold War

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would derful with good narration I would recommend it to any ody interested about the atomic age

really good with a lot of details

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Its finally here, the full unabridged story. For years (decades actually) this was only available as a 4 cassette set, and later digital but still only abridged. After the success of Making of Atomic Bomb (1986) this baffled me.

What makes Rhodes telling compelling was this tome dedicates half its length to the espionage from the 'allied' Soviets starting from the start of the Manhattan Project, and worse still the mistaken belief held by the US government that science isn't 'discovered' around the world as intelligent people are everywhere.

So having bought this hardcover in 1995, and the later cassette set (which I would ultimately encode to mp3) I'm sitting in for the full story. The Rest of the Story as one commentator would say.

Now It Can Be Fully Told...

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Wraps up the whole Nuclear arms debacle in an understandable way. Brings a personable human side to the scientists on both sides.

Very well documented history from many points of view.

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Rhodes intertwines the history of the Cold War, the politics of the time, espionage, morality and the science of the hydrogen bomb into a well told and fast paced story. As others have commented, it seems to focus more on the espionage of the Soviet Union in stealing the secrets of the atomic bomb than the actual science of the hydrogen bomb. I personally felt it added to the story and the backdrop of the hydrogen bomb, but if that isn’t what you are interested in, it may be off-putting. Overall I didn’t like this quite as much as his first book, but that is a high bar to surpass and I would still highly recommend this as a follow up.

Highly Recommend

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I loved The Making of the Atomic Bomb, but wow this book is amazing. Really important document of a crazy period of history. The science in it is great, as a matter of fact, would have been happy to get some more.

Blockbuster Book

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Great narration, captivating story. As others have said, less focused on the physics and more on the politics and espionage of the era, but an amazing book nonetheless.

Excellent retelling of a side of history I didn’t know much about

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Good overall, but still there are parts that are drawn out and I found myself missing huge parts of it. Very much a spy book and deals with the getting of the information by the Soviets on The Bomb and development of the H Bomb. Where TMotAB goes into more interesting development of personalities of those involved and had a build of momentum towards the end, this kinda stagnantes. it's worth the listen, but Rhodes other books are much better. Folly of the Bombs is very similar, certainly worth the listen but could had been made a bit more stream lined.

The major issue I have with this is the narrator and the mixing of the sound. the narrator is soft spoken and monotonal. The mixing of the sound does him zero good and if you turn up the volume the bass muffles his words. I had to turn off my bass and turn up my treble all the way to get a clear narration that didn't sound like Charlie Browns teacher.

Better than Folly of the Bombs but not as good as TMotAB

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Listened to this right after The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Rhodes is the same caliber of author in this work, but the story is more depressing: espionage by broken men, bleak Soviet PoW camps, nuclear holocaust. Definitely an interesting summary of the decade after WW2 and how the arms race came to be.

the mix on the audiobook is extremely bass-heavy and was a bit distracting.

Good but more of a bummer than its predecessor

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