Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World,   ISBN:9780670020645

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If you want to learn the impact technology is really having on our economy, you need to read this book. After reading this book, I understand why inflation isn't as bad as we expect. Because the cost of technology decreases so rapidly, the cost of information decreases. As a result, the cost of services that provide information decrease. Chris Anderson does a much better job of explaining this than me, so get the book.

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Tom Zoellner creates a wonderful tome explaining how the discovery, scientific understanding, mining, and development of uranium influenced recent history. I can remember studying about this strange element in the periodic table, atomic number 92, and its radioactive peers, such as Radon (86), Radium (88) Plutonium (94), to name a few, and how the science made me a bit listless. Had Zoellner's "Uranium" been available at that time, there would have been no doubt in my mind of why the tedious study of nuclear chemistry and physics was so important. It literally dictated the course of history since the latter half of the 20th century.

This is, as one would expect, more of a history book than a scientific text. The world is the stage for this fascinating story. From it's early discovery in Shinkolobwe, in the Belgian Congo, to the post war American uranium rush centered around Moab, Utah, uranium was more coveted than gold had been in the previous century. It has been found on virtually every continent (except Central and South America).

The rush to develop the atomic bomb, won by the United States during World War II during the Manhattan Project, culminating in the devastating uranium bombing of Hiroshima and the radium bombing of Nagasaki in 1945, put a merciful premature end to the most destructive war in history. Of course, the history of element number 92 did not stop there. After providing a wonderfully detailed account of this period, including a vivid description of the various colorful personalities involved (Oppenheimer, Fermi, etc), Zoellner goes on to examine the desperate pursuit of uranium 235 by the Soviets, the resulting forced labor camps in St. Joachismal (Bohemia), the slump of the uranium market after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the recent renaissance of uranium as a result of its coveting by Iran and other Islamic powers for the purpose of military domination, and other third world countries for both peaceful and non-peaceful purposes.

This is not a quick or easy read. But it is really not meant to be. Still, I recommend it highly for the serious student of science and history, and especially for the reader who is interested in how the former dictates, to a large extent, the latter.

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I thought Uranium came from Oak Ridge before I read this book. A lot of interesting information in this book. Two criticism: Felt like I had jet lag from going back and forth to the different locations; and page 54 'By the spring of 1945, Japan's surrender was becoming increasingly certain.' Pretty sure the author meant Germany's surrender was certain in the spring of 1945.

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First of all, this book is *not* a science book. Instead, it is a somewhat meandering history of the use of uranium, particularly as it relates to U-238 and U-235 used in nuclear fission reactions. Initially, uranium was used for little except as an occasional colorant in stained glass, but in 1934 Enrico Fermi discovered the instability of it's atom and the potential use in bombs. Zoellner discusses the history of mining uranium in Joachimsthal (Czeck Republic), Shinkolobwe (Congo), Australia, and Moab (Utah), but much of the book discusses weapon use, starting with the Manhattan Project and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, and then moving variously to Pakistan's nuclear program and Iraqi and Iranian efforts.

While variously interesting, Zoellner focuses mostly on sensational stories, even discussing a Japanese doomsday cult which sought a nuclear bomb but instead settled for using sarin gas. Even the historical stories seem to lean towards the sensational and feel incomplete (there was no mention of a 1950's proposal to use a nuclear weapon to create a large port in Alaska). And while he critically analyzes the US nuclear build up (including the silly government advice to "avoid panic and you'll come through alright"), there is little information on the parallel build up by the USSR except as it related to the Joachimsthal mine or the currently sloppy security in the former republic of Georgia. Discussions of nuclear electricity and questions of waste disposal are thin, and Homer Simpson rates a mention but Chernobyl gets barely a paragraph.

While I was initially enthusiastic about this book, it soon grew dull and at times it sounds more like a travelogue than a history. I listened to the audio book and by the end was setting the speed faster to finish quicker. The reader does a good job, even reading quotes in various accents. I originally found this annoying - he'd speak with accents in German, Russian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern, Australian, American cowboy, George Bush, etc. - but I must admit that it helped to keep it clearer who he was talking about.

Customer Rating: 

Guess it depends on what you're looking for. Just don't look for too much science in this book. You will find entertaining stories and anecdotes as well as a bunch of travelogues. This is not a serious book - it's journalism in hard cover.

The author is a newspaper reporter and magazine editor writing on the beach in Northern California (literally) but, mercifully, he avoids the knee-jerk environmentalism and turns in a fairly balanced work. He does makes some boners like comparing occupational hazards of early US underground mining for uranium with mining slave labor behind the Iron Curtain. They are comparable neither in moral equivalency nor in quantified loss of life.

As someone with a little background in the subject, he's sloppier in terminology and scientific concepts that I would like and has a weakness for purple prose.

If you're looking for WHY uranium is so significant to the human race, he talks about the Bomb but does a lesser job on the core fact that some of the advocates he quotes only hint at. The discovery of nuclear energy really can be a game changer for the human race. We've only the most clumsy applications so far - I know, I'm a nuclear engineer - but a universe awaits us.

Why don't we have more than 20% of country's electricity come from uranium? Why don't we have nuclear rockets to shuttle us to the Moon and Mars? (They were ready for flight-testing in 1972!) Why aren't we rushing to build pebble reactors to make gasoline from water and coal via nuclear heat?

The book was a quick read and entertaining but again, hardly touches the real issues we must struggle with.

One quibble with the editor and not the author - why can't we have a cover photo with adequate depth of field so that the rock is all in focus? It is set up for eye strain now.