![]() On the final page, radiation streams from a desert west of Los Alamos. While Rhodes ends the main body of his book on a note of fear - a Japanese doctor who wakes short of breath after a nightmare - Fetter-Vorm’s work closes with a meditative reflection on matter and energy. The main protagonist here isn’t a human it’s the atom. Illustrations of the subatomic world explain everything from the research that led to the first fission reactor to the radiation sickness that poisoned residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the art is commentary in itself - not on the bomb’s impact on humankind, but on the majesty of the physics that made such a device possible. ![]() The matter-of-fact text largely avoids taking sides or answering such questions. In one drawing, a scientist asks, “Can it be done?” Juxtaposed is a scene of charred Japanese corpses and another scientist asking, “Should it be done?” ![]()
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