Trinity

Title: Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb
Date: 2012
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Writer:  Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
Artist: Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

Jonathan Fetter-Vorm relates a wide-ranging history of the development of the first nuclear weapons, beginning with the early discoveries of radioactivity and nuclear forces, through the Manhattan project, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the beginnings of the nuclear arms race.

This is an ambitious book, and Fetter-Vorm moves the narrative along at a rapid pace, sprinkling in enough physics and history to get the important concepts across. The focus characters are Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project's Secret Weapons Lab, and the military director of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves.

There are appearances by Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi, HG Wells, Lise Meitner, Leo Szilard, Albert Einstein, Curtis LeMay, Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Emperor Hirohito.

Fetter-Vorm presents the technical details of the bomb in concise, accessible bits, and uses exact quotes as much as possible to provides revealing glimpses of the many historical figures.

There are some moments when it feels like he is trying too hard, but overall, the artwork conveys the power and the terror of the forces unleashed while it accentuates the humanity of the characters.

There have certainly been much larger and more extensive books written about these events, but this graphic novel manages to be wide-ranging in scope while it explains technical detail and gives insight into the human interactions that lead to the atomic age.

Rating: 8.5/10