Rhodes R. The making of the atomic bomb

A Touchstone Book, New York, 1986, 923 pp.
Taken as a story of human achievement, and human blindness, the discoveries in the sciences are among the great epics.
Robert Oppenheimer.
In an enterprise such as the building of the atomic bomb the difference between ideas, hopes, suggestions and theoretical calculations, and solid numbers based on measurement, is paramount. All the committees, the politicking and the plans would have come to naught if a few unpredictable nuclear cross sections had been different from what they are by a factor of two.
Emilio Segre.Part One: Profound and Necessary Truth.
Moonshine.
Atoms and Void.
Tvi.
The Long Grave Already Dug.
Men from Mars.
Machines.
Exodus.
Stirring and Digging.
An Extensive Burst.
Part Two: A Peculiar Sovereignty.
Neutrons.
Cross Sections.
A Communication from Britain.
The New World.
Physics and Desert Country.
Different Animals.
Revelations.
The Evils of This Time.
Part Three: Life and Death.
Trinity.
Tongues of Fire.
Epilogue.
Notes.