A disturbing account of the early years of the atomic bomb, when safety took second place to winning World War II. After his father's death, Nolan Jr., professor of sociology at Williams College, received a box of revealing material from his grandfather James F. Nolan, chief medical officer at Los Alamos. It intrigued him enough to produce this haunting book, which describes his grandfather's job, which began with delivering medical care but finished by dealing with the bomb's radiation dangers. As the July 1945 date of the first test approached, Nolan and medical colleagues warned Gen. Leslie Groves, the project's commander, that fallout might require evacuation of nearby areas of New Mexico. Groves downplayed the possibility, but it turned out that civilians received levels of radiation higher than considered "safe," levels that, "less than twenty years later, would be regarded as eight hundred times higher than the accepted standard." The news was suppressed and victims kept unaware for fear of litigation. Throughout, the author makes it clear that the military approached radiation as a public relations problem, and the doctors who knew better treaded lightly for fear of upsetting their superiors. "When accidents did occur," writes the author, "the doctors were used to procure scientific data and then became complicit in hiding evidence, motivated, once again, out of fear of litigation." Nolan accompanied fact-finding commissions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and though more than a month had passed since the explosions, they encountered horrendous suffering and radioactivity. Their reports did not conceal these facts, but Groves paid no attention, assuring Congress that residual radiation was absent and that the bombs themselves caused few radiation casualties. Nolan returned to medical practice but not before joining other medical experts in the first postwar tests, Operations Crossroads and Sandstone, held in the South Pacific, where, despite warnings, military leaders exposed themselves, their men, and local islanders to deadly levels of radiation. The author delivers a solid narrative of America's painful introduction to atomic radiation. A unique perspective on the Atomic Age. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Accounts of the early atomic age often focus on the physicists who developed nuclear weaponry and the US military planners who sought to monopolize it. Here, Nolan (sociology, Williams College) turns his attention to the doctors who cared for members of the first atomic communities and assessed health threats posed by nuclear technology. This is a gripping story and, for the author, a deeply personal one. Nolan's grandfather, James Findley Nolan, was an ob-gyn radiologist who treated the Manhattan Project scientists and their families. He even accompanied the "Little Boy" bomb to the Pacific and traveled to Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings, where he witnessed firsthand their devastating effects on Japanese civilians. At the time, there was no scientific consensus about whether there was a "permissible dose" of radiation, but doctors like Nolan warned of atomic weapons' potential health risks. Unfortunately these warnings were ignored, dwarfed by the militarized culture of secrecy that coalesced around the bomb, which even led some doctors to see sick people as objects of study rather than as patients in need of care. By unearthing his complicated family history, Nolan provides new insights into the moral dilemmas that confronted ordinary workers at the epicenter of the atomic age. Summing Up: Recommended.All levels. --Natasha Zaretsky, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

In this well-informed history, Williams College sociologist Nolan (What They Saw in America) chronicles the participation of his grandfather, James Findley Nolan, and other medical doctors in U.S. efforts to develop nuclear weapons. An obstetrician trained in the use of radiation therapy to treat gynecological cancer, James Findley Nolan joined the Manhattan Project in 1943 and participated in the Trinity test, the Joint Commission's study of the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and the testing of nuclear weapons on Bikini Atoll. He and the other Manhattan Project physicians urged caution despite knowing little about the effects of radiation, according to the author, and continued to raise the alarm as their understanding increased. But those warnings were often ignored and even, at times, willfully misinterpreted by military officials to downplay the dangers of nuclear fallout. The author also notes the suspicions of medical doctors that the army was more concerned with guarding against future legal claims than protecting the health and safety of testing personnel. The penultimate chapter, which addresses the sociological implications of humanity's pursuit of technological innovations such as the internet and artificial intelligence, feels out of place. Still, this fine-grained and lucidly written account illuminates a little-known aspect of America's nuclear history. (Aug.)