WAR OF THE WORLDS

In the end, a trinity of bombs brought the war to a close: Jumbo, the device detonated in Alamagordo, New Mexico, to prove that atomic weapons could be made; Little Boy, the uranium titan that vaporized Hiroshima; and Fat Man, the plutonium monster that laid waste to Nagasaki. In the crematory light of those blasts, the world changed--so much death contained in so little; so much of the bloody business of war refined to a bloodless decision. Ultimately it all came down to science, to a matter of buttons. In a flash, Prometheus was one with Genghis Khan.

The philosophical ramifications...