Title: The Hand of God: From Oppenheimer to Hypersonics
Author: Paul McCarthy
POV: Author, Paul McCarthy
Genre: Nonfiction

This book is an account of how nuclear weapons came to be and how nuclear weapons have developed up until now. From the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the Fat Boy bomb dropped on Nagasaki, to try to end World War 2. How dangerous they were to how dangerous weapons are now. It is a great reading if you’re interested in how nuclear weapons came to be and how they are even more deadly today. Filled with many references and sources showing Mr McCarthy researched a great deal.

I enjoyed this book. I think it provided a good basic background to the science and weaponization of the atom. But the book did better at discussing the associated political and historical information. There are a lot of good books on this subject, but this book’s strength is its broad scope, which is a good starting point for future reading. I also think it is important to read McCarthy’s honest Foreword where he sets out his objectives for the book. In my opinion, he accomplishes these. I would have preferred, however, where McCarthy compares the various bombs and missiles, etc to have placed things like dimensions in a table, which would have made it easier to parse the comparisons. Thank you NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.