Red Cloud at Dawn Truman, Stalin, and the End of the Atomic Monopoly [Paperback]

ANEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWEDITORS' CHOICE

On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed First Lightning, exploded in the deserts of Kazakhstan. This surprising international event marked the beginning of an arms race that would ultimately lead to nuclear proliferation beyond the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States.

With the use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin folows a trail of espionage, secrecy, deception, political brinksmanship, and technical innovation to provide a fresh understanding of the nuclear arms race.

Gordin has crafted a quite wonderful book . . . [It] greatly expands what we should know about the contest for nuclear supremacy in the early Cold War. Heartily recommended. Ed Goedeken, Library Journal

More than a tale of scientific ingenuity, [Red Cloud at Dawn] probes the human motives of those involved in a high-stakes drama . . . A perceptive study, rich with implications for a twenty-first-century world still fraught with nuclear tensions. Bryce Christensen, Booklist

Michael Gordin brings vividly to life the end of the American atomic monopoly. By focusing on what each side knew--and did not know--about the other, he sheds new and original light on the origins of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race. This is a stylish book, with important implications for how we think about nuclear weapons past and present. David Holloway, author of Stalin and the Bomb

Nothing about the early cold war can be understood without grasping the terrifying first few years of nuclear weapons. Everything was in play: who would have them, who would control them, would they be used to enforce apax Americana. Spies, diplomats, treaties, and detonations--nothing gripped decision makers as much as the atomic arsenal, from screaming headlines to the silent intelligence analyses on both sides of the divide. InRed Cloud at Dawn, Michael Gordin zeros ilC