A primer on nuclear weapons, from the science of fission and fusion to the pursuit of mutual assured destruction, the SALT treaties, and the Bomb in pop culture.Although the world’s attention has shifted to drone-controlled bombing and cyberwarfare, the threat of nuclear war still exists. There are now fourteen thousand nuclear weapons in the hands of the nine declared nuclear powers. Even though the world survived the Cold War, we need to understand what it means ...

The riveting story of a modern age scientific feud between two Nobel Prize-winning scientists over the nature of cosmic rays and the universe.Set in a revolutionary era of physics and science when a series of rapid-fire discoveries was upending our understanding of the universe, Splinters of Infinity by Mark Wolverton tells a little-known story: the tale of two of America’s foremost physicists, Robert Millikan (1868–1953) and Arthur Compton (1892–1962), wh...

“Last September the United States drew a thin curtain of radiation around the earth…The feat was regarded by some of its leading participants as the greatest scientific experiment of all time.” ―Walter Sullivan, the New York Times, March 19, 1959After the Soviet Union proved to the United States that it possessed an operational intercontinental ballistic missile with the launch of Sputnik in October 1957, the world watched anxiously as the two superpowers ...

Set in a revolutionary era of physics and science when a series of rapid-fire discoveries was upending our understanding of the universe, Splinters of Infinity by Mark Wolverton tells a little-known story: the tale of two of America's foremost physicists, Robert Millikan (1868–1953) and Arthur Compton (1892–1962), who found themselves locked in an intense, often deeply personal, conflict about cosmic rays. Confirmed in 1912, cosmic rays—enigmatic forms of penetrating radiation—see...

Military and security expert Daniel Wasserbly introduces the elite unit tasked with protecting the nation from long-range weapons of mass destruction.Comprised of just three hundred soldiers, the United States Army’s 100th Missile Defense Brigade and 49th Missile Defense Battalion utilize sophisticated and cutting-edge technology to monitor the skies and seas surrounding the country and shield three hundred million Americans against any potential nuclear threat. Na...

The heroic story of the founding of the US Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America's first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that truly revealed the new nation's character—above all, its ambition and entrepreneurial ethos.In Rebels at Sea, Eric Jay Dolin corrects that significant omission, and contends that privateers, as they were called, were in fact critical to the American victory. Privateers ...

Uranium, a nondescript element when found in nature, in the past century has become more sought after than gold. Its nucleus is so heavy that it is highly unstable and radioactive. If broken apart, it unleashes the tremendous power within the atom—the most controversial type of energy ever discovered.Set against the darkening shadow of World War II, Amir D. Aczel's suspenseful account tells the story of the fierce competition among the day's top scientists to harness nuclear power....

In the early 1770s, the men who invented America were living quiet, provincial lives in the rustic backwaters of the New World, devoted primarily to family, craft, and the private pursuit of wealth and happiness. None set out to become “revolutionary” by ambition, but when events in Boston escalated, they found themselves thrust into a crisis that moved, in a matter of months, from protest to war.In this remarkable book, historian Jack Rakove shows how the private lives of these me...

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER"Nathaniel Philbrick is a masterly storyteller. Here he seeks to elevate the naval battles between the French and British to a central place in the history of the American Revolution. He succeeds, marvelously."--The New York Times Book ReviewThe thrilling story of the year that won the Revolutionary War from the New York Times bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower.**In the ...

A sweeping, in-depth history of NSA, whose famous “cult of silence” has left the agency shrouded in mystery for decadesThe National Security Agency was born out of the legendary codebreaking programs of World War II that cracked the famed Enigma machine and other German and Japanese codes, thereby turning the tide of Allied victory. In the postwar years, as the United States developed a new enemy in the Soviet Union, our intelligence community found itself targetin...

In the spirit of Ben Macintyre’s greatest spy nonfiction, the truly unbelievable and untold story of Frederick Rutland—a debonair British WWI hero, flying ace, fixture of Los Angeles society, and friend of Golden Age Hollywood stars—who flipped to become a spy for Japan in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a s...

**Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award****The definitive history of nuclear weapons—**from the turn-of-the-century discovery of nuclear energy to J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—this epic work details the science, the people, and the sociopolitical realities that led to the development of the atomic bomb.This sweeping account begins in the 19th cen...