Globe Pequot / Stackpole Books
Pages: 464
Trim: 8½ x 10⅜
978-0-8117-3961-0 • Hardback • January 2021 • $39.95 • (£31.00)
978-0-8117-6931-0 • eBook • January 2021 • $38.00 • (£29.00)
Don A. Farrell has been researching the history of the Mariana Islands for forty years and has written ten previous books on the subject. Don is a graduate of Cal State Fullerton, a U.S. Air Force veteran, a former high school teacher, and former chief of staff to the speaker of the Guam legislature. From 2011 to 2017, he served on the board of directors of the Humanities Council of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands; during that time, he spent four years as vice-chairman of the Commonwealth’s Historic Preservation Board. Don is the Marianas historian for Stephen Ambrose Historical Tours and regularly participates in its World War II tours of the Pacific and in symposia in the United States. He has lived in the Marianas since 1977 and currently resides on the island of Tinian.
Atomic Bomb Island is a triumph. It is based on extremely deep research that provides a new and vivid account of the servicemen and scientists who prepared and delivered of the atomic bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki from Tinian. It is packed with details and important insights about this vital, but little understood component of the Manhattan Project. The narrative makes many individual participants come to life and devolves into some highly fraught clashes among them that had material consequences in the course of history.
— Richard Frank, author of Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire
Author Don Farrell seems to have been destined to compose this well-researched, well-written history of the creation and use of the world’s first atomic bombs, a story that ultimately peaks on Tinian Island of the Marianas archipelago in the Pacific Ocean. Not only has Farrell authored previous books and articles about the Mariana Islands, but also he has lived on those islands for more than forty years. Farrell successfully combines comprehensive research with a compelling, accurate, and readable narrative that should reward any reader, from amateur military history buffs to the experts.
— Darrell Dvorak, contributor to Air Power History magazine