Gordin

"I heard him sing only once in Annales, too little to speak of him at length, enough to be entranced. Was it beautiful? No, it was unforgettable. The voice was nothing exceptional… a fine baritone voice, not very large, flexible as grass, ruled with a marvelous intelligence, a reflective divination… He sang as we breathe, out of necessity.” [Bernard Gavoty / "Reynaldo Hahn: Le musicien de la Belle Époque"]

A finely drawn portrait of Einstein's sixteen months in Prague

Most Americans believe that the Second World War ended because the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan forced it to surrender. Five Days in August boldly presents a different interpretation: that the military did not clearly understand the atomic bomb's revolutionary strategic potential, that the Allies were almost as stunned by the surrender as the Japanese were by the attack, and that not only had experts planned and fully anticipated the need for a third bomb, they were skeptical about whether the atomic bomb would work at all. With these ideas, Michael Gordin reorients the historical and contemporary conversation about the A-bomb and World War II.