Good summary except it failed to give counterpoints

After giving a reasonably good summary of the Manhattan Project, O’Donnell points out that Truman’s decision to use the bomb was controversial and notes several criticisms of the decision. While the criticisms are fair points, he fails to give any counterpoints, so the final impression one gets is that Truman’s decision was hasty, ill-advised, and ultimately a bad decision. There’s room for debate on the wisdom and ethics of the use of the bomb, but O’Donnell only presents one side of the debate.

1 person found this helpful

Excellent

This was so engaging. Perfectly explained and with great speech. My 14 yr old found it to be easier to understand then the course work she was given.

Very i teresti g

Provides a very good history of the emergence of the Atomic bomb, its use and initial proliferation.

OK...worth the price (free)

I added a bunch of the free The Great Courses lectures to my reading list. This was one of them. Overall the lectures were mildly interesting and worth the price (free). These free lectures are single lectures from longer series of lectures and often refer to other material in other lectures. All of these were too short to be very useful. These are also all in lecture format (as opposed to book format). For me the lecture format is harder to absorb than book format. This one briefly covered the Manhattan Project and the creation of the Atom Bomb. This was one of the least interesting of the lectures I tried. There are many interesting stories surrounding the Manhattan project but this lecture was narrow and largely boring.

1 person found this helpful

Entertaining but not enough Manhattan Project

The content is entertaining and discusses the role of the atomic bomb during the war. Less attention is put into the actual members of the Manhattan project and their accomplishments. It is also a bit short, but overall good.

General information with no going into details

Thought it's a good lecture it left me wanting to know more: why was it called Manhattan project? Who were the members of the group of scientists? etc.