History of nuclear weapons

The history of nuclear weapons chronicles the development of nuclear weapons—devices of enormous destructive potential which derive their energy from nuclear fission or nuclear fusion reactions—starting with the scientific breakthroughs of the 1930s which made their development possible, continuing through the nuclear arms race and nuclear testing of the Cold War, and finally with the questions of proliferation and possible use for terrorism in the early 21st century.

References

;The first nuclear programs

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• Gregg Herken, Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2002). http://www.brotherhoodofthebomb.com/
• David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy 1939-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
• Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).
• Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).
• Henry DeWolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945). (Smyth Report) http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/SmythReport/index.shtml
• Mark Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power, 1939-1949 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

;Nuclear weapons and energy in culture

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• Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).

;Nuclear arsenals and capabilities

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• Chuck Hansen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, (Arlington, TX: Aerofax, 1988).
• Chuck Hansen, The Swords of Armageddon: U.S. nuclear weapons development since 1945, (Sunnyvale, CA: Chukelea Publications, 1995). http://www.uscoldwar.com/
• Stephen Schwartz, ed., Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U. S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (Brookings Institution Press, 1998). http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/weapons.htm