One World Or None - Report To The Public On The Full Meanind Of The Atomic Bomb

by Katharine Way

In 1946, just months after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the scientists who had developed nuclear technology came together to express their concerns and thoughts about the nuclear age they had unleashed. In a small, urgent book of essays, legends including Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and Robert Oppenheimer try to help readers understand the magnitude of their scientific breakthrough, fret openly about the implications for world policy, and caution, in the words of Nobel Prize–winning chemist Harold C. Urey, that "There Is No Defense." The original edition of One World or None sold 100,000 copies and was a New York Times bestseller. Today, with the nuclear issue front and center once more, the book is as timely as ever.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Physics

Paperback

First published December 31, 1972

Reviews

[Hywel Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written only a few short months after the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, this is a set of linked essays by prominent individuals connected with the Manhattan Project, including Szilard, Einstein and Bethe, probably the 3 most important intellectual progenitors of nuclear science. Even simply as a historical record of the time it therefore has great interest. But, what makes this book all the more interesting is that the main risks and benefits of nuclear energy and weapons we discuss today were understood well enough even then, several years before the first nuclear power plant had even been constructed, and before the first Soviet weapon was detonated that initiated the nuclear arms race.

This book is therefore a must-read for anyone interested in the historical context of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

[Greg Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting snapshot of 1946 thought, and astonishing for how much of the thinking around nuclear weapons had already crystallized—even on a public level using only non-secret information.

They'd already realized that nuclear weapons could be mass-produced, that it would only be a matter of years before another country could acquire them (despite the optimistic predictions of Truman and Groves on a few occasions). They'd already figured out that any defense against nuclear weapons—even if the technical issues were worked out—would let enough warheads through as to still create almost unthinkable destruction. They already anticipated the situation stabilizing in a sort of mutual deterrence, with the necessity being a large enough counter-force to be a credible second-strike attempt.

In fact, they got so much correct that the interesting part almost becomes what they didn't predict. There's the biggest one, more a hope really: that the world governments would band together to collectively control the use of nuclear weapons, materials, and technologies. (We got some international treaties, not always followed, and bilateral agreements between the US and USSR.) And in the worse case scenarios, they imagine one solution never followed: geographically disperse the US population and infrastructure, so a single bomb couldn't cause very much damage. We created the nuclear sponge of missile silos in remote parts of the west, but larger bombs and better targeting made any further dispersal more expensive and less effective.

Anyways, an interesting and brisk book that transformed my idea of how widely people had figured out the wealth of problems created by atomic bombs, and how quickly they did so. Also funny to note that the one professional writer in the book, Walter Lippmann, also contributes the most inscrutable chapter. All the scientists take such pains to write simply and clearly, while Lippmann's rhetorical tics are clearly unedited and deeply obfuscating.

[paul mcfartney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tough book to apply a rating to, and that's for a variety of reasons: The instigating factors of its creation have shifted in perception over the last ~80 years. Each individual contribution tackles the subject from a singular angle – some are more focused on ethics, others on the bureaucracy of international arms control, others on the raw science, and all areas in-between. At times, the language evokes the moral limitations of the age, from the use of the term "Oriental" (as an Asian-American, I take this as par for the course) to a distinctly post-war sense of American exceptionalism. This latter one is particularly notable in many of the essays which attempt to pose solutions for the nuclear crisis.

But anyways. For those reasons and others I find it necessary to specify why it is that I came to this book: I've been obsessed with the dawning of the Atomic Age and the transhumanist ethical/moral implications it opened up, and I wanted to hear from the scientists themselves. Someone who might be looking for more of a biographical vignette of a particular scientist, or a primary source document about the various sentiments of the relevant scientists might rate this book from a completely different place.

Even through my particular lens, however, it's striking to me just how rewarding the majority of the essays in this collection really are. The full weight of the moment – whether from a purely ethical perspective or a purely scientific one – is successfully imbued through almost all of the pieces, though not in the ways I had expected going in. Einstein's contribution serves as something of a finale despite being fairly dry, and I found myself a bit let down by Oppenheimer's essay, though he certainly more than made up for it with his later statements and advocacy. These were far more focused on the ethical implications on a humanist level.

On the contrary, some of the more academic pieces such as those by Harlow Shapley and Eugene Wigner actually turned out to be quite striking – and I say this as someone who has barely engaged with chemistry since high school. Whether it's the result of stellar (I noticed this pun after typing, so no pun intended, but I am sorry) editing or a deep understanding of the moral implications of the moment – after all, these were written less than a year after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the prose throughout is excellent and never lets the reader forget the scale of the crisis at hand.

The reason I came to this book is because, as a young person, I feel that the climate crisis serves as an analogous frontier for the human project on Earth. It is like a nuclear war that is unfolding everywhere, each second; the explosive chain reaction has already begun, but we still have time to save ourselves. To do so, however, requires a depth of thinking and perspective for which the only corollary seems to be the entry into the Atomic Age. Never before and never since have we encountered two issues that so plainly eliminate the divisions human beings instinctively draw between each other.

I came to this book for a snapshot of the moment right after humanity opened the door into this utterly terrifying – and thus utterly hopeful – realm of thinking. What does responsibility look like when faced with such potential catastrophe? This book delivered. Any flaws or particularities pale in comparison to the living words of those most knowledgeable and most responsible for pushing us over that ethical threshold. For the first time we were attempting to advocate for the future of all of humanity, spurred there by our own progress. In my opinion, there are still many essential lessons to be learned from this collection, regardless of why you're coming to it.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was written in 1946 by people who worked on, or were tangentially involved, in the Manhattan Project. To read their thoughts on nuclear arms control, defense against nuclear warfare, and nuclear power is a fascinating step back in time. They were right on many things, but sadly, not about how the world could jointly control nuclear arms. We all got that wrong.

[Chuck Kollars · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sort of collection of essays, of widely varying quality and content, but all tied together by a single theme (which is even further emphasized by the editing). Many authors having something to do with the development of the Atomic Bomb each wrote a short chapter.

Seven decades later, the result may be of considerable historical interest in some contexts, but is probably not of interest on its original terms to the general lay reader. (The copy I read is actually a 2007 _reprint_, which confirms its considerable historical interest.)

All the authors keep physics/science/math to an absolute minimum. Even so, I can't remember many details. So I'll instead just give my (three) general/overall impressions:

First, the authors feel -and communicate- this is an extremely _urgent_ topic. My personal opinion is the urgency was justified, the fact that humans have survived for another seven decades is due to extremely good luck; the odds were stacked heavily against it.

Second, despite being very "reasonable" and trying really hard to think "outside the box", an intense political unreality flavors everything. Most of the arguments -and most of the proposed solutions- will appeal to "a thinking person" (i.e. another scientist), but not to a politician.

And third, there is not even any faint hint of the approach that seems by far the most relevant today. I'm not quite sure what to call it, maybe "sociobiology" or maybe "evolutionary biology" or maybe "political economy" - at root "what's actually possible, and how should we arrange our society, given the behavior and heritage of our brains?".