Chain Reactions

Chain Reactions is an essential read for those interested in the history and future of our applications of the atomic nucleus. It is enlightening, engaging, tragic, funny, accurate, and optimistic, all at once. Lucy Jane Santos’ research and analysis have uncovered nearly-forgotten archival information and cleanly extracted an authoritative reality from stories riddled with myth and controversy. I’ve engaged with nuclear history for the past 20 years, and yet still learned something new and important on each page. * Nick Touran, What is Nuclear *Full of surprising facts from a tumultuous past, Lucy Jane Santos offers an intriguing and entertaining story of a powerful element with revolutionary potential. * Marco Visscher, author of The Power of Nuclear: The Rise, Fall and Return of Our Mightiest Energy Source *Uranium has lurked at the centre of some of our strangest visions and strongest fears in the modern world. Lucy Jane Santos has written a light, entertaining and revealing history of a heavy element * Professor Jon Agar, University College London *A fascinating and richly detailed history charting an illuminating course through the story of one of the most useful and destructive elements. * Kat Arney, Science writer and broadcaster *There is much to enjoy in Santos’ breezy and - yes - hopeful history * Physics World *Genuinely interesting throughout. * Brian Clegg *For those new to the topic it provides a diverting and idiosyncratic primer. * Times Literary Supplement *One might think there is nothing new to learn about these subjects. But Lucy Jane Santos’s book Chain Reactions: A Hopeful History of Uranium gives readers a fresh look at each of these topics as she traces the role of the 92nd entry on the periodic table through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. * Science *This is not a book on the physics of this historically important element, and the story of the atom bomb’s construction is crisply condensed. Rather, Ms. Santos, the executive secretary of the British Society for the History of Science, explores both the academic and popular literature to unearth long-forgotten stories, both entertaining and horrifying, that capture the broader impact of uranium on our society. * Wall Street Journal *

Lucy Jane Santos, author of Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium and Chain Reactions: A Hopeful History of Uranium, is an expert in the history of the twentieth-century with a particular interest in the cultural history of all things nuclear. She is the Executive Secretary of the British Society for the History of Science. Lucy lives in England.