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Uranium
Book

Uranium

War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World

Tom Zoellner
Viking, 2009

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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Applicable

Recommendation

This is a great story about a very special rock which was formed millions of years ago, and continues to breed a deadly form of energy. Tom Zoellner’s factual book about uranium reads like a gripping novel. He breathes vigorous life into a saga that could have been a dry political and geological tale. His beautifully crafted story puts uranium into its complex context as a key protagonist on the world stage. Zoellner’s reporting ranges from the Congo to Nazi Germany to the war in Iraq, with vivid information at every turn. getAbstract found this meticulously researched book exceptionally interesting, and recommends it to anyone interested in discovering how society entered the atomic age and how it is muddling through.

Take-Aways

  • Uranium holds huge danger as a source of the apocalypse and great promise as a source of clean energy. One ton can produce as much power as 20,000 tons of coal.
  • Uranium breaks down into radium, radon and plutonium. It is common and lethal.
  • The U.S. spent $2 billion on the Manhattan Project, which built the WWII atomic bomb. President Harry Truman called it the “greatest scientific gamble in history.”

About the Author

Tom Zoellner wrote The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire, an American Library Association “Notable Book,” and he co-authored An Ordinary Man. He is a former Men’s Health contributing editor and San Francisco Chronicle reporter.

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    A. C. 1 decade ago
    This summary is inaccurate. Uranium is an element, it is sometimes found in petrified wood but it certainly isn't made of leaves. Also in the PDF it claims the plutonium in Fat Man, the bomb detonated over nagasaki weighed less than a third of a penny. This is the quantity of matter that converted into energy, not the quantity of plutonium in the bomb (6.2 kilos).
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      1 decade ago
      We will go back to the book to check again that our writers and editors interpreted its data correctly. I remember that we went over this book a few times, but we're grateful for your heads-up - E. Rauzin, managing editor, getAbstract.
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      1 decade ago
      Thanks Andrew! You'll notice updates in the take-aways and recommendation to reflect the corrections you cited. We truly appreciate the effort you made to bring this to our attention. -- E. Rauzin
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      1 decade ago
      Thanks Erica. Much appreciated.