Overview

The world waited anxiously for the other shoe to drop, according to this history of the fraught period between America's atomic bombing of Japan and the Soviet Union's 1949 test of its first nuclear device. Princeton historian of science Gordin ('Five Days in August') treats the era as a study in the pitfalls of incomplete information. American officials tried to keep nuclear technology secret (but not too secret: they fretted that not publishing crucial data would tell the Soviets what to look for) and conjectured endlessly about when Russia would get the bomb. Meanwhile, the Soviets, working from espionage and revealing American public sources, wondered whether their information on bomb making was trustworthy and struggled to overcome huge gaps in their knowledge. When American radiological monitors detected a Soviet nuclear blast in 1949, American officials worried about the geopolitical fallout from revealing their knowledge of the Russian success, which Stalin kept secret.

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<p> This is a book full of great details . . . Gordin's main argument is that . . . if now so fixated on espionage and secrecy, maybe the two antagonists could have figured out a way to forestall the arms race. [A] striking, thoroughly researched book. --Nicholas Thompson, The New York Times Gordin brings considerable scholarship to the subject of how the Soviets succeeded in building an atomic bomb. . . . Weaves an impressively wide range of sources into a brilliant narrative about the intelligence war. -- History Today <br> Gordin has crafted a quite wonderful book . . . [It] greatly expands what we should know about the contest for nuclear supremacy in the early Cold War. Heartily recommended. --Ed Goedeken, Library Journal <br> More than a tale of scientific ingenuity, [Red Cloud at Dawn] probes the human motives of those involved in a high-stakes drama . . . A perceptive study, rich with implications for a twenty-first-century world still fraught with nuclear tensions. s

<p> This is a book full of great details . . . Gordin's main argument is that . . . if now so fixated on espionage and secrecy, maybe the two antagonists could have figured out a way to forestall the arms race. [A] striking, thoroughly researched book. --Nicholas Thompson, The New York Times Gordin brings considerable scholarship to the subject of how the Soviets succeeded in building an atomic bomb. . . . Weaves an impressively wide range of sources into a brilliant narrative about the intelligence war. -- History Today <br> Gordin has crafted a quite wonderful book . . . [It] greatly expands what we should know about the contest for nuclear supremacy in the early Cold War. Heartily recommended. --Ed Goedeken, Library Journal <br> More than a tale of scientific ingenuity, [Red Cloud at Dawn] probes the human motives of those involved in a high-stakes drama . . . A perceptive study, rich with implications for a twenty-first-century world still fraught with nuclear tensions. n

<p>&#8220;This is a book full of great details . . . Gordin's main argument is that . . . if now so fixated on&#160;espionage and secrecy, maybe the two antagonists could have&#160;figured out a way to forestall the arms race.&#160;[A] striking, thoroughly researched book.&#8221; &#8212;Nicholas Thompson, The New York Times &#8220;Gordin brings considerable scholarship to the subject of how the Soviets succeeded in building an atomic bomb. . . . Weaves an impressively wide range of sources into a brilliant narrative about the intelligence war.&#8221; &#8212; History Today <br>&#8220;Gordin has crafted a quite wonderful book . . . [It] greatly expands what we should know about the contest for nuclear supremacy in the early Cold War. Heartily recommended.&#8221; &#8212;Ed Goedeken, Library Journal <br> &#8220;More than a tale of scientific ingenuity, [Red Cloud at Dawn] probes the human motives of those involved in a high-stakes drama . . . A perceptive study, rich with implications fo

Author Information

Michael Gordin is a professor of the history of science at Princeton University. He is the author of Five Days in August: How World War 2 became a nuclear war.

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