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The Age of Radiance
- The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
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Publisher's summary
From the New York Times best-selling author of Rocket Men and the award-winning biographer of Thomas Paine comes the first complete history of the Atomic Age, a brilliant, magisterial account of the men and women who uncovered the secrets of the nucleus, brought its power to America, and ignited the 20th century.
When Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi, and Edward Teller forged the science of radioactivity, they created a revolution that arced from the end of the 19th century, through the course of World War II and the Cold War of superpower brinksmanship, to our own 21st-century confrontation with the dangers of nuclear power and proliferation - a history of paradox, miracle, and nightmare. While nuclear science improves our everyday lives - from medicine to microwave technology - radiation’s invisible powers can trigger cancer and cellular mayhem. Writing with a biographer’s passion, Craig Nelson unlocks one of the great mysteries of the universe in a work that is tragic, triumphant, and above all, fascinating.
From the discovery of X-rays in the 1890s, through the birth of nuclear power in an abandoned Chicago football stadium, to the bomb builders of Los Alamos and the apocalyptic Dr. Strangelove era, Nelson illuminates a pageant of fascinating historical figures: Marie and Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Franklin Roosevelt, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Harry Truman, Curtis LeMay, John F. Kennedy, Robert McNamara, Ronald Reagan, and Mikhail Gorbachev, among others. He reveals how brilliant Jewish scientists fleeing Hitler transformed America from a nation that created lightbulbs and telephones into one that split atoms; how the most grotesque weapon ever invented could realize Alfred Nobel’s lifelong dream of global peace; and how, in our time, emergency workers and low-level utility employees fought to contain run-amok nuclear reactors while wondering if they would live or die.
Radiance defies our common-sense views of nature, with its staggering amounts of energy flowing from seemingly inert rock and matter pulsing in half-lives that transforms into other states over the course of decades or in the blink of an eye. Radiation is as scary a word as cancer, but it’s the power that keeps our planet warm, as well as the force behind earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions, and so organic to all life that even our own human bodies are radioactive. By tracing mankind’s complicated relationship with the dangerous energy it discovered and unleashed, Nelson reveals how atomic power and radiation are indivisible from our everyday lives.
Brilliantly told and masterfully crafted, The Age of Radiance provides a new understanding of a misunderstood epoch in history and restores to prominence the forgotten heroes and heroines who have changed all of our lives for better and for worse. It confirms Craig Nelson’s position as one of the most lively and skillful popular historians writing today.
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Midnight in Chernobyl
- By: Adam Higginbotham
- Narrated by: Jacques Roy
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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April 25, 1986 in Chernobyl was a turning point in world history. The disaster not only changed the world’s perception of nuclear power and the science that spawned it, but also our understanding of the planet’s delicate ecology. With the images of the abandoned homes and playgrounds beyond the barbed wire of the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, the rusting graveyards of contaminated trucks and helicopters, the farmland lashed with black rain, the event fixed for all time the notion of radiation as an invisible killer.
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Midnight in Chernobyl is the book to listen to.
- By NH on 03-21-19
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109 East Palace
- Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos
- By: Jennet Conant
- Narrated by: Anne Twomey
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
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They were told as little as possible. Their orders were to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and report for work at a classified Manhattan Project site, a location so covert it was known to them only by the mysterious address: 109 East Palace.
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Great Listen
- By John H. Davis III on 10-22-05
By: Jennet Conant
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The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill.
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Eye opening
- By Brian on 11-16-10
By: David E. Hoffman
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First War of Physics
- The Secret History of the Atom Bomb 1939-1949
- By: Jim Baggott
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 17 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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An epic story of science and technology at the very limits of human understanding: the monumental race to build the first atomic weapons.
Rich in personality, action, confrontation, and deception, The First War of Physics is the first fully realized popular account of the race to build humankind's most destructive weapon. The book draws on declassified material, such as MI6's Farm Hall transcripts, coded Soviet messages cracked by American cryptographers in the Venona project, and interpretations by Russian scholars of documents from the Soviet archives.
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For all atom bomb and physics nerds
- By Jodie Swafford on 11-30-18
By: Jim Baggott
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Hiroshima Nagasaki
- By: Paul Ham
- Narrated by: Robert Meldrum
- Length: 20 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more than 100,000 instantly, mostly women, children, and the elderly. Many hundreds of thousands more succumbed to their horrific injuries later, or slowly perished of radiation-related sickness. Yet the bombs were "our least abhorrent choice", American leaders claimed at the time - and still today most people believe they ended the Pacific War and saved millions of American and Japanese lives. Ham challenges this view, arguing that the bombings, when Japan was on its knees, were the culmination of a strategic Allied air war on enemy civilians that began in Germany.
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While extraordinary, I can only give it 3 stars
- By Gillian on 12-17-14
By: Paul Ham
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The Atomic Bazaar
- The Rise of the Nuclear Poor
- By: William Langewiesche
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In his shocking and revelatory new work, celebrated journalist William Langewiesche investigates the burgeoning threat of nuclear-weapons production and the inexorable drift of nuclear-weapons technology from the hands of the rich into the hands of the poor. As more unstable and undeveloped nations acquire the ultimate arms, the stakes of state-sponsored nuclear activity have soared to frightening heights. Even more disturbing is the likelihood of such weapons being used by guerrilla non-state terrorists.
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A Review
- By Mitch Emswiller on 05-31-08
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Chernobyl
- The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe
- By: Serhii Plokhy
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno. He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry....
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Companions to Each Other
- By Tim on 06-04-19
By: Serhii Plokhy
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Big Science
- Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex
- By: Michael Hiltzik
- Narrated by: Bob Saouer
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the 1930s, the scale of scientific endeavors has grown exponentially. The birth of Big Science can be traced to Berkeley, California, nearly nine decades ago, when a resourceful young scientist pondered his new invention and declared, "I'm going to be famous!" Ernest Orlando Lawrence's cyclotron would revolutionize nuclear physics, but that was only the beginning of its impact.This is the incredible story of how one invention changed the world and of the man principally responsible for it all. Michael Hiltzik tells the riveting full story here for the first time.
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An informative and thought-provoking book
- By Jean on 08-23-15
By: Michael Hiltzik
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The Alchemy of Air
- A Jewish Genius, a Doomed Tycoon, and the Scientific Discovery That Fed the World but Fueled the Rise of Hitler
- By: Thomas Hager
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.
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Great Book Thoroughly Researched
- By Terry A. Gray on 10-21-11
By: Thomas Hager
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The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
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Scientia Est Potentia/Knowledge is Power
- By Cynthia on 10-08-15
By: Annie Jacobsen
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Red Moon Rising
- Sputnik and the Hidden Rivals That Ignited the Space Age
- By: Matthew Brzezinski
- Narrated by: Charles Stransky
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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On October 4, 1957, a time of Cold War paranoia, the Soviet Union secretly launched the Earth's first artificial moon. No bigger than a basketball, the tiny satellite was powered by a car battery. Yet, for all its simplicity, Sputnik stunned the world.
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awesome
- By Thomas on 06-25-09
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Sun in a Bottle
- The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking
- By: Charles Seife
- Narrated by: Bill Weideman
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past 50 years, governments and research teams have tried to bottle the sun with lasers, magnets, sound waves, and particle beams, struggling to harness the power of fusion. Again and again, they have failed, disgracing generations of scientists. Throughout this fascinating journey, Charles Seife introduces us to the daring geniuses, villains, and victims of fusion science.
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Focused on the Lone Wolves
- By Robert Goldston on 11-14-08
By: Charles Seife
What listeners say about The Age of Radiance
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Richard & Katherine Colwell
- 08-05-14
Interesting and informative, and yes........very e
This is a perfect book mate to "the disappearing spoon" and/or history of the atomic bomb. I really enjoyed the energy for the reader
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1 person found this helpful
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- George W. Spence
- 05-05-15
great book
great rump through the history of radiation and the wonderful characters who brought it to us.
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- Christopher Mackay
- 06-09-15
Good info. Nice read
Enjoyed the history of atomic power. Hope it helps dispel inaccurate misconceptions of nuclear power for some
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- Andrew B
- 08-06-18
Interesting listen for science history
As someone in nuclear science, this book had bits that are relatively well known to the field. However, it also had some interesting stories that I had never heard before that gave a freshness to the subject. Definitely a good read for those into science history.
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- Kindle Customer
- 09-06-15
Solid listen, good narrator
If you could sum up The Age of Radiance in three words, what would they be?
A well-written and well-read history of atomic research, from the discovery of radioactivity to the aftermath of the cold war.
Any additional comments?
The narrator read M.I.5 (the British Intelligence Agency) as "em one five" which is inaccurate and was slightly annoying.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-20-22
Liberal who likes nuclear power
He berates Reagan as a warmonger and praises Gorbechov as a man who could have ridden the world of nuclear weapons. Then he goes on to discount any science from Russia and claims that there is “nothing credible” from scientists who have studied Chernobyl long term. He says there’s no long term danger to exposure to radiation and cites the studies from Hiroshima as evidence, but fails to note those studies didn’t start until 5 years after the bombs dropped and take no account of any deaths after the bomb to when the study starts.
In summary, he ignores any science or studies he doesn’t agree with, attacks conservative thinking and decides at the end of his book that we all need to grow up and embrace nuclear energy as the way to stop global warming and to stop using coal and gas. He never pays any attention to how we might have caused global warming through nuclear accidents and nuclear tests and seems to have blinders on when it comes to long term damage from radiation across the planet. Occasionally he has a paragraph or two about these things but quickly moves back to his propaganda.
If you don’t know anything about nuclear energy, this book will give you a timeline of the people and history. If you do know about research across the globe and the dangers of long term nuclear exposure, this book will drive you batty.
Be warned, the author has his own agenda which he never openly acknowledges. Read this book with a grain of salt and do more research. Don’t think of this author as being an expert.
By the way, I’m not a scientist, a physicist, or a nuclear expert. I am an American social worker. If I can learn to understand the nuances of atomic energy and how it has impacted our environment, anyone can. Learn people. Learn so that we actually can do something about the real environmental issues we face. Fossil fuels are not the real problem. Let’s face the hidden elephant in the room.
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- David's Opinions and Reviews
- 05-04-14
Strong finish
This ended for me better than it began, as the history it covered I was less aware of in newer years pertaining to nuclear history. Many good statistics and emotionally taxing moments in the latter parts of this book that for me are a plus, as I am a whore for drama. It would have been nicer if the drama was fictional, but you learn much about the real effects of radioactive catastrophe, as the earth is no stranger of...just blinded by nations attempts to keep it under the table. If particle physics are strange or old hat to you, the end of this book should still be somewhat informative, and educational. Take that, and my three star rating for what it is.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Rosemary Wells
- 06-12-15
Badly narrated
The voice sounds bored and so the reader gets bored. We needed Scott Brick here or one of the better voices to bring this book to life.
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