steve olson

In the desert of eastern Washington State, far from prying eyes, scientists Glenn Seaborg, Enrico Fermi, and many thousands of others — the physicists, engineers, laborers, and support staff at the facility — manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and for the bombs in the current American nuclear arsenal, enabling the construction of weapons with the potential to end human civilization. With his characteristic blend of scientific clarity and storytelling, Olson asks why Hanford has been largely overlooked in histories of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. The Apocalypse Factory (W. W. Norton) offers a new generation this dramatic story of human achievement and, ultimately, of lethal hubris. Olson will be joined in conversation by Tom Carpenter, attorney and Executive Director of…