100 SUNS

Despite all the thousands of caricatures and artistic re-interpretations of the nuclear "mushroom cloud," photographs of the real thing are still intensely frightening and visually fascinating. The "thousand suns" referred to in the Bhagavad Gita, from which J. Robert Oppenheimer quoted when the first atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, are depicted here in 100 carefully selected photographs of the aboveground nuclear tests conducted by the United States in the Nevada and New Mexico deserts and over the Pacific Ocean. Culled by Light (Full Moon ) from formerly classified documents held by the United States National Archives and Los Alamos National Laboratory, the photos, dating from 1942 to 1962, are awe-inspiring. Crisply printed on black glossy stock, each photo is printed full-page recto, with the facing verso page containing only the plate number, the name of the test ("Trinity"; "Mike"; "Wahoo"), the test date and the number of kilotons (or megatons) of energy released. Extensive notes on each photo and test are in the back, along with a bibliography. Many of the photos show only the blast, but some have people. One photograph, in particular ("019. Simon"), does not show an explosion: soldiers huddle in a trench, identifiable only by the blurred shapes of their helmets, with what looks like glowing debris raining upon them. The back caption notes: "In a moment the ground and air shockwaves will toss them like dolls, then fill their mouths with radioactive dust and also make it temporarily impossible to see." Ultimately, that particular test "scattered deadly fallout throughout southwest Utah" and "highly radioactive rain fell in Albany, New York the following day." Aboveground tests ended with the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. Releasing worldwide with a first printing of 35,000, this book, some of whose colors are impossible to describe, will leave readers changed. (Oct.)