Powerful Force, Powerful Book

by

Lauren Roberts

 

Four years after it was published, this book still maintains an indelible hold upon me. I often take it out to peruse it, looking for what I am not sure. Anyone who comes over either has or will see it. It possesses me in a way no other book has ever done.  

It is 100 Suns by Michael Light, and it is the most unusual and extraordinary photography book published. It is also the most disturbing because the “suns” in the title refers to the 216 U.S. atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests that took place above ground between July 16, 1945 and November 4, 1962. (After the Limited Test Ban Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union too effect in 1963, nuclear testing went underground, becoming literally invisible and, unfortunately, more frequent.)  

You may think that straight reproductions of military photographs of nuclear explosions could hardly be of interest. Wrong! I have to go into adjective overdrive to even begin to describe it properly: stupendous, horrifying, fascinating, startling, appalling, stunning, incredible, gripping. Photograph after photograph of these terrifyingly beautiful blasts fill each page.

Light assembled these 100 images from among the collection at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. National Archives and the clandestine Lookout Mountain Air Force Station, many of which were previously classified and whose photographers were sworn to secrecy. Never intended for publication, these surprisingly high quality images are reproduced without any changes to the original print, making these all the more “real” and frightening.

A large portion of the book is black, an understated design that strengthens and intensifies its powerful impact. Since the tests were divided between the desert and the ocean, that is how the book is divided too. The text is minimal; each print is accompanied only by the name of the test, its explosive yield in kilotons or megatons, the date and the location. (All other information is listed in the back of the book.) The deliberately stark design, unaltered reproductions and minimal information is intended to emphasize the shocking opulence of the explosions.  

The front of the dust jacket is a surprisingly quiet shot of a single white explosion as gently shaped as a glowing Tiffany lamp in the dark, seeming almost innocuous. The backside makes a stronger statement. A bright light in the distance horizon glows like a massive setting sun as soldiers in the foreground turn away, shielding their faces. It’s as if they cannot get away from it—and, in many ways, they cannot.

Atomic explosions are generally described as looking like mushroom clouds, but the diversity here is surprising; three of the early photographs are eerie clouds that resemble microscopic images of human cells if the cells were weirdly white. “Fox,” a 1952 Nevada explosion is a glorious burst of red and yellow in a multi-pointed start shaped cloud. “Diablo,” a 1957 Nevada test, conveys a cosmic sense of power and infinite space as it gushes outward, dwarfing a set of buildings down to the size of cereal box toys.

But it is the depictions of the men who were the military’s unwitting test subjects that is truly monstrous. The point of view of the image chosen for “Simon,” for example, is from the trench. Literally. The photographer is crouched among the soldiers lining a dirt trench, shooting them from behind with their helmeted heads bent, coat collars up and radioactive fallout raining down like snow beneath a nuclear-lit sky. You can almost breathe the air in this image. Even more terrifying is “Dog,” an 81-kiloton explosion that took place on Enewetak Atoll in 1951. The photographer focuses not on the explosion itself but on its image chillingly reflected in the oversized goggles of its live viewers. But its greatest horror is the men themselves who are sitting on Adirondack chairs dressed only in casual wear, some in a relaxed posture, others leaning forward eagerly as if watching a film.

The title—a reference to the response made by J. Robert Oppenheimer after the world's first nuclear explosion—is a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, the classic Vedic text: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One . . . I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

That terror is this book’s point. In his notes at the end, Light explains the science behind these weapons and their impact upon the environment and humans as well as the history of their discovery, testing and use. “From 1951 to 1957 at the Nevada test site,” he writes, “U.S. military troops, primarily from the Army, were ordered to observe nuclear tests at varying distances form the blast point, and then conduct ‘atomic war exercises’ at or near ground zero immediately after detonation . . . in its quest to create ‘hardened’ troops capable of ‘tactical’ warfare on the atomic battlefield.

“It is difficult to comprehend the mechanics and effects of just one such distillation of brilliant human savagery,” Light continues. “That is why these photographic images . . . remain utterly relevant . . . Photographs only tell us about the surface of things, about how things look. When it’s all we have, however, it’s enough to help understanding. It exists. It happened. It is happening. May no further nuclear detonation photographs be made, ever.”

Helping our understanding of the weapon of war is precisely what 100 Suns does so well. In the final analysis, it is a brilliant depiction of the science of destruction taken to its ultimate level. And it has my highest recommendation.

(The book can still be ordered through any bookstore, or used copies can be found on AddALL and Bookfinder ranging from $25 to $50. A limited selection of the images in this book can be seen here.)


Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, 900 bookmarks and approximately 1,000 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) and Book Publicists of Southern California as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. You can reach her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it