Dexter Masters (1909–1989)

It's incredible how much acclaim and praise this book received when it was published in 1955, indeed, given to such popularity that it was translated and republished into ten languages. It was still renowned when it was given a second printing run in 1965.

All of this is not without merit, for Dexter Masters so effectively captures the human element inside the science and technology disaster horror story that it is easy to forget that one is not reading fiction, but instead being carried by the narrator through his recollection - seeing the visions playing against his synapses as he recalls the daily events that have become burnt into his memory.

Yet, here we are and the book and the author are so thoroughly forgotten in the passages of literary history that no fewer than four publications have re-appropriated the title themselves. .

It is a shame, for this book reads like a warning to the future. The novel foreshadowing a range of issues surrounding the nuclear field - including radiation poisoning, worker injuries, community harm and even the moral debates over the right of magazines to publish details of nuclear tests and accidents.

If you can get your hands on a copy, it is a pleasure to read - and one I hope to find and re-grace my shelves once again.… (lisätietoja)

One World Or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb reprints a collection of essays that originally appeared in 1946, shortly after the beginning of the atomic age. In the introduction, Arthur H. Compton, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1927 for cosmic ray research, describes the purpose of the book, "We now have before us the clear choice between adjusting the pattern of our society on a world basis so that wars cannot come again, or of following the outworn tradition of national self-defense, which if carried through to its logical conclusion must result in catastrophic conflict" (pg. xiii). To that end, the scientists whose work appears in One World Or None used their expertise to attempt to spur the public toward policy change in order to prevent the arms race that dominated the Cold War. Many of these essays originally appeared in other forms, so the collection occasionally feels disjointed. Still, as a window into the early Cold War and reactions to the atomic age, One World Or None is a fascinating read.… (lisätietoja)