Terrors and Marvels. How Science and Technology Changed the Character and Outcome of World War II

*Sales/posting to the USA suspended*. Hard cover dust wrapper 360pp b&w plates. Near fine A riveting chronicle of World War II's forgotten combatants: the engineers, physicists, chemists, and academics whose contributions to the war effort were as important as the noble sacrifices of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen who bravely risked their lives. While it is a widely accepted fact that America's development and employment of the atomic bomb ended the Pacific struggle -- and that the failure of Hitler's scientists to develop their own A-bomb helped to doom Germany -- little note has been made of the other remarkable scientific accomplishments of this dark and terrible epoch. Beginning with a fascinating overview of the Depression-era struggle to establish scientific and military alliances that would ultimately enable the Allies to catch up to the Axis's early dominance, Terrors and Marvels offers an eye-opening history of the furious battles for technological superiority covertly waged by the world's most brilliant minds. From the creation of faster, deadlier jets and rockets to the development of biological, chemical, and electronic warfare -- from astonishing advances in medical science to breakthroughs in radar and decoding -- the incredible successes and failures that occurred in top-secret facilities around the world in the early 1940s never made headlines but often determined triumph and defeat. Here, also, are the intensely human stories of the architects of the terrifying war machines -- men and women of rare intelligence and integrity torn by the conflicting demands of conscience and country, haunted by their roles in the use and abuse of powerful science.…