The Beginning or The End: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

LOCAL AUTHOR

Soon after atomic bombs exploded over Japan, thereby ending World War Two in 1945, America entered the atomic age. Like most fascinations in popular culture, the movie industry was ready to capitalize on it. MGM set out to produce a big-budget dramatization of the Manhattan Project, as did Paramount Pictures. What followed was a power struggle between the chief symbols of power in 1940s America: the ever-expanding post-war federal government and the public’s favorite utility, motion pictures.

It was to be Hollywood’s most expensive miscalculation and one of humanity’s most tragic experiments. With careful research, important names, and colorful events, this book covers a fantastic forgotten chapter in American entertainment.

Greg Mitchell’s writing is nuanced and breezy. The book’s visuals are compelling and revealing. The defining conflict is presented with haunting clarity. Many of the long-deceased characters are presented as detailed and fully formed human beings.Perhaps the greatest honor that can be given to this book is that it is a nonfiction book that places you so deep in the action, that you forget it is a tale of the past. It all feels so real and so current.

This book is a literary experience that any fan of American history should undertake with great speed, an experience that I didn’t want to end.