IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023 - 16

Book Review
Book Review
Atomic Doctors: Conscience and
Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear
Age-James L. Nolan, Jr. (Cambridge,
MA, USA: Belknap Press of Harvard
Univ. Press, 2020, 294 pp.)
Reviewed by Rachelle Linner
Medford, MA 02155 USA
 It Is hard to imagine a more appropriate
author for this impressive work of scholarship and
interpretation than Williams College Professor
James L. Nolan, Jr. A sociologist who focuses on
the role of technology in modern society, Professor
Nolan is the grandson of James Findley Nolan,
M.D., a physician who was involved in the seminal
events of the early nuclear age. Through the lens
of his grandfather's life, James L. Nolan explores
the dynamics of " the overarching, penetrating, and
ubiquitous quality of technique in modern society. "
It is an ambitious agenda and one he accomplishes
with nuanced sensitivity.
James Findley Nolan, M.D. (1915-1983) was a
28-year-old obstetrician-gynecologist when he was
recruited for the Manhattan Project and appointed
postsurgeon at Los Alamos. In addition to medical
care for the Los Alamos community, Dr. Nolan
and his colleagues were responsible for developing
standards to protect against radiation exposure
in the laboratory and during the Trinity Test in July
1945. Dr. Nolan accompanied the Hiroshima bomb
from Los Alamos to Tinian Island, was among the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2023.3240225
Date of current version: 7 March 2023.
16
0278-0097/23©2023 IEEE
first people to enter Hiroshima and Nagasaki after
Japan's surrender, and monitored fallout during
nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. After the war,
Dr. Nolan went on to have a distinguished civilian
career in gynecological oncology.
Was Dr. Nolan a hero or a villain? This is the conflict
that Atomic Doctors addresses as it delineates
the competing narratives offered about the use of the
bomb and the effects of radiation. It is an eminently
readable history of the early years of the atomic age,
presented as a case study that raises broader questions
about the relationship between technological
determinism and human freedom. Nolan clearly
illustrates how " technological momentum " made the
use of the bomb inevitable. He quotes historian Ferenc
Szasz, who argued that " Truman did not really
make any 'decision.' Instead, the momentum of the
Manhattan Project made the decision for him. "
There were three communities present in the
Manhattan Project and each " emphasized distinct,
and sometimes conflicting, vocational characteristics:
the academics, the military, and the much
smaller community of medical doctors. The academics
were primarily concerned with scientific discovery....
They were accustomed to the open exchange
of
ideas
through
seminar-style
discussions and
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023

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