Review by Booklist Review
Stirrings in the civilian nuclear-power industry, moribund since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, are reverberating in book publishing, too, and Mahaffey's history of the atom follows hard upon journalist Stephanie Cooke's skeptical In Mortal Hands (2009). Nuclear-engineer Mahaffey is neither advocate nor opponent of the industry. Regarding its revival as inevitable, he writes most pertinently for those tempted to enter the nuclear field. His treatment's generality suits any interested reader, however, as it chronicles atomic history from the heroic age of Curie and Rutherford to its engineering age of extremes in the 1950s and 1960s, imparting en route a solid sense of the risks associated with releasing nuclear energy, controlled or uncontrolled. Another hook is Mahaffey's colloquial, jaunty style, which somehow doesn't undermine a serious attitude toward the risks but actually, however paradoxically, reinforces it in his accounts of accidents. Attuned to the compromises inherent in engineering design, Mahaffey's fluid presentation confounds categorical attitudes toward nuclear energy.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
For many people, the idea of nuclear power died with the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, but for the curious and open-minded, this book offers a timely look at nuclear technology that, the author argues, could provide plenty of cheap, renewable energy, if only we can get past our oversized dread of it. Mahaffey's history lesson begins along a familiar path, from 17th-century chemist Robert Boyle to the great 20th-century physicists. Nazism and WWII sent hundreds of scientists-and their cutting-edge work-to the U.S. But the war also sent that research underground in the ultra-secret Manhattan Project. Researchers also dreamed of "peaceful atoms" to generate electricity and run submarines, planes and rockets. The specters of Hiroshima and a few horrifying nuclear accidents displaced that peaceful vision. With a wealth of anecdotes, Mahaffey, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, offers hope leavened with pragmatism that, while nuclear technology may "be experimental forever," it can still be useful and safe. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
