How nuclear obsessions changed all of our futures

Kim Jong-un meets Donald Trump at their summit in Singapore last week Pic: Getty

HISTORY: Fallout: A Journey Through the Nuclear Age, from the Atom Bomb to Radioactive Waste, By Fred Pearce, Portobello Books, €17.25

The small number of scientists who witnessed the world’s first nuclear explosion over the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, seem to have struggled to absorb the significance of that secret weapon test. Charged with overseeing the detonation was J Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project.

“We waited until ...