- Alex Wellerstein is a historian of science and nuclear weapons and a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He is also the creator of the NUKEMAP. This blog began in 2011. For more, follow @wellerstein.Want more nuclear secrecy content? Check out my book:
Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States (University of Chicago Press, 2021).I have a new book available for purchase from HarperCollins in 2025 — a brand-new take on Truman and the bomb:
THE MOST AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY:
Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic AgeI also have a new blog/newsletter which updates much more regularly:

Doomsday Machines
Post-Apocalyptic Road Trips, End of the World-Building, and Interesting Times. A blog about how we think and have thought about end of the world, in both fact and fiction. Search
Pages
Projects
-
Recent posts
- NUKEMAP roadmap
- New book: The Most Awful Responsibility
- Manhattan Project fissile material inventories
- News and updates
- Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
- Announcing DOOMSDAY MACHINES
- Henry Stimson didn’t go to Kyoto on his honeymoon
- Deconstructing “The Doomsday Machine” – Part 1: The Question of Memory
- Oppenheimer: Vacated but not Vindicated
- Did the Japanese offer to surrender before Hiroshima? (Part 2)
Post categories ►
- Redactions (117)
- Visions (89)
- Meditations (85)
- News and Notes (36)
- Articles (2)
Post tags ►
- 1940s (154)
- 1950s (84)
- 1960s (32)
- 1970s (6)
- 1980s (10)
- 1990s (7)
- 2000s (5)
- 2010s (57)
- 2020s (11)
- Accidents (11)
- Archives (17)
- Atomic Energy Commission (33)
- Bad ideas (31)
- Bomb design (35)
- Books (28)
- Business and industry (9)
- Civil Defense (14)
- Counterfactuals (6)
- David E. Lilienthal (9)
- Declassification (14)
- Department of Energy (6)
- Edward Teller (13)
- Espionage (23)
- Fat Man (20)
- FBI (11)
- Firebombing (7)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (6)
- Germany (8)
- Graphic design (34)
- H-bomb (37)
- Hanford (10)
- Harry S. Truman (15)
- Hiroshima (46)
- Historiography (25)
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (54)
- Japan (11)
- John Coster-Mullen (5)
- Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (13)
- Klaus Fuchs (17)
- Leaks (12)
- Leo Szilard (7)
- Leslie Groves (50)
- Little Boy (8)
- Livermore (5)
- Los Alamos (43)
- Manhattan (show) (9)
- Manhattan Project (112)
- Musings (27)
- Nagasaki (27)
- North Korea (5)
- Nuclear fallout (6)
- Nuclear power (10)
- Nuclear testing (34)
- NUKEMAP (23)
- Oak Ridge (13)
- plutonium (7)
- Proliferation (8)
- Resources (12)
- Smyth Report (16)
- Soviet Union (33)
- Speculation (32)
- Tinian (10)
- Trinity (24)
- Vannevar Bush (12)
- William L. Laurence (7)
E-mail subscription
Recent posts from DOOMSDAY MACHINES- "It is obvious that the immediate destruction of the complete list of 66 cities would have an even more devastating effect on Russia" March 6, 2026
- Cutting the head off the Soviet chicken February 27, 2026
- "Launching missiles is your job." February 20, 2026
- Hitting the jackpot February 13, 2026
- Bananas for BRAVO February 6, 2026
- "Take me to your shelter, leader!" January 29, 2026
- Playing at the End of the World January 22, 2026
- You too can survive a nuclear war — if you have a flying car January 13, 2026
- "Zero time was speeding toward me like a car you cannot dodge" January 1, 2026


