06/08/2020
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.)
Fascinating and disturbing, Atomic Doctors provides a behind-the-scenes view of the birth of the bomb. It’s a crucial addition to the literature of the atomic age. It also raises essential questions about science, society, and the moral compromises made in their service.
It is hard to imagine a more appropriate author for this impressive work of scholarship and interpretation than [Nolan]…It is an eminently readable history of the early years of the atomic age, presented as a case study that raises broader questions about the relationship between technological determinism and human freedom.
Technology and Society - Rachelle Linner
What did it mean to have a calling as a physician in the making and use of the atomic bomb at the dawn of the nuclear age? James Nolan tells a riveting story of his grandfather and other physicians associated with the Manhattan Project, all of whom were faced with determining their allegiance to the Hippocratic ideal of primum non nocere (first, do no harm) while interacting with both scientists and soldiers intent on creating an atomic weapon that they believed would end the war. Nolan’s historical account is also a brilliant sociological assessment of the abiding tensions among these very different constituencies and of a cultural belief in the blessings of technology that continue to define modern life and its discontents.
In this gripping book, James L. Nolan Jr. narrates…a compelling commentary on not only the ethics of atomic warfare but also the technological experiments of our own age, including artificial intelligence and genetic engineering.
Technology and Culture - Abena Dove Osseo-Asare
James L. Nolan’s Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age focuses on the role of his grandfather James F. Nolan (1915–83) as a research physician in the unfolding drama of developing a nuclear bomb…[Nolan] clarifies important historical facts and opens an interdisciplinary academic discourse about the role of nuclear technology in American society. This approach makes the meticulously researched publication, perfectly placed seventy-five years after the Trinity test, a very readable book, despite its tragic subject. It gives a truthful insight into the complexity of a physician’s conscience and complicity at the dawn of the nuclear age.
H-Net Reviews - Eva Castringius
That the military acted to deal with the medical concerns about radiation only when faced with legal pressure or loss of face is also an all too modern concept for not just the military but society…There is much for a reader to take away from the book regarding history and ethics.
Air & Space Power Journal - Lt. Col. Scott C. Martin
This story, full of both poignant family life and the challenges of working at remote U.S. military locations, is a tale worth reading not only for the historical value, but also to illustrate the dilemma that radiation posed to US leadership and downward through the ranks to the medical personnel…Highly recommended.
Journal of Nuclear Materials Management - Mark L. Maiello
Carefully researched and engagingly written…As Nolan concludes, the willingness of health professionals—including physicians—to do the military’s bidding, and to condone experiments that were ‘technically sweet’ but ethically dubious, means that ‘the long shadow of the Manhattan Project…is still with us.
California History - Gregg Herken
James Nolan combines a compelling narrative of his grandfather’s experiences on the Manhattan Project with illuminating history and a morally sensitive account of medical dilemmas at a time of national crisis. Atomic Doctors is a profound and important book.
Through a many-layered story of people making momentous decisions under the most trying of circumstances, James Nolan plumbs deep questions about science and technology, medicine and war. Atomic Doctors is a special achievement—an important work of scholarship that is also a gripping and moving read.
Nolan's Atomic Doctors is a splendid, valuable, and necessary book.
Medicine, Conflict and Survival - Leo van Bergen
As the grandson of the protagonist of the book, James L. Nolan, Jr. crafts a stunning narrative, in which personal accounts and family experiences are successfully amalgamated with academic rigor, situated within a large historical framework…Offer[s] counter-narratives that shed new insight into the dominant narrative of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Western Historical Quarterly - Yuki Miyamoto
Provides valuable historical background on the longstanding efforts to protect human health and the environment and understand the effects of radiation exposure…A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the history of nuclear research, weapons development and testing.
An admirable account of the central role of physicians in the Manhattan Project and its aftermath…Nolan’s skillful weaving of his grandfather’s story into an account of the pressures exerted on medical ethics by time, place, and circumstance makes for compelling reading.
Jonathan D. Morenon Scientist
Describe[s] how American doctors became connected to troubling events during World War II that raised thorny moral issues around medicine and war.
Foreign Affairs - Lawrence D. Freedman
Usually histories of the nuclear project at Los Alamos, N.M., during World War II dwell on tensions between the military officers overseeing the project and the physicists doing the necessary research. In this striking study, James L. Nolan Jr. looks at the disquieting participation of members of a third profession, medicine…[A] powerful and readable book.
Illuminates how Dr. Nolan at Los Alamos and two physician colleagues, Louis Hempelmann and Stafford Warren, dealt with the frightening human effects of nuclear radiation from the bomb. Combining an effective analysis of their efforts with a compelling telling of Dr. Nolan’s own story, the book enlarges America’s atomic bomb experience as a case study of truly disruptive technology in war and society.
Science Sketches - Sidney Perkowitz
An admirable account of the central role of physicians in the Manhattan Project and its aftermath…Nolan’s skillful weaving of his grandfather’s story into an account of the pressures exerted on medical ethics by time, place, and circumstance makes for compelling reading.
American Scientist - Jonathan D. Moreno
2020-05-26
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.
