Leo Szilard - Books and articles

Those answers are here. This information is current as of July 1999. -- Gene Dannen

|| By Szilard || About Szilard ||

THE VOICE OF THE DOLPHINS

Szilard, Leo. The Voice of the Dolphins, and other stories. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961.

A small classic of the nuclear age. Five stories: The Voice of the Dolphins, My Trial as a War Criminal, The Mark Gable Foundation, Calling All Stars, and Report on Grand Central Terminal. Also translated into German (Hamburg, Rowohlt), French (Paris, Editions Denoel), Italian (Milano, Feltrinelli Editore) Spanish (Buenos Aires, Compania General Fabril Editoria), Danish (Steen Hasselbalchs Forlag), and Japanese (Misuzu Books).

Reprint edition:
Szilard, Leo. The Voice of the Dolphins, and other stories: expanded edition. Stanford California: Stanford University Press, 1992. (Stanford Nuclear Age Series).

This new "expanded edition" adds one more story, "The Mined Cities," an introduction by historian Barton Bernstein, and an afterword by Helen Weiss. In the original edition, all of the "editor's notes" actually were written by Szilard -- including one correctly predicting that a lunar crater would be named for him after his death. The compilers of this new edition have added footnotes of their own to "The Mined Cities," spoiling Szilard's joke.

COLLECTED PAPERS

Volume 1
Bernard T. Feld and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, editors. The Collected Works of Leo Szilard: Scientific Papers. Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1972.

Szilard's scientific papers and patents. With a foreword by Jacques Monod and introductions by Carl Eckart (Thermodynamics), Maurice Goldhaber (Nuclear Physics), Bernard T. Feld (Manhattan Project), Aaron Novick (Biology), and Julius Tabin (Patents). Also a section of photographs. Highly recommended.

Volume 2
Spencer R. Weart and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, editors. Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts - Selected Recollections and Correspondence. Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1978.

Szilard in his own words and documents, from his birth in Budapest to the year 1946. Includes his "Ten Commandments" in English and German. Paperback edition very reasonably priced. Highly recommended.

Volume 3
Helen S. Hawkins, G. Allen Greb, and Gertrud Weiss Szilard, editors. Toward a Livable World: Leo Szilard and the Crusade for Nuclear Arms Control. Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1987.

Articles, speeches, and letters from 1946-1964. Without Szilard's narration of events, or any illustrations, this volume is a dry reference work rather than living history of Szilard's struggle to prevent nuclear catastrophe. Includes his "Letter to Stalin" and "Are We On the Road to War?" speech. Recommended for scholars and university libraries.

-- Hardcover ISBN 0262192608

This is not a complete list of sources, but it is a good introduction to the Szilard literature. Items are listed in chronological order.

Smith, Alice Kimball. "The Elusive Dr. Szilard." Harper's Magazine, July 1960, pp. 77-86.

Anonymous. "Close-up: 'I'm Looking for a Market For Wisdom:' Leo Szilard, Scientist." Life, September 1, 1961, pp. 75-79.

Coffin, Tristram. "Leo Szilard: The Conscience of a Scientist." Holiday, February 1964, pp. 64-67, 92-99.

Rosenfeld, Albert. "This was Leo Szilard: Remembrance of a Genius." Life, June 12, 1964, p. 31.

Rabinowitch, Eugene. "James Franck 1882-1964, Leo Szilard 1898-1964." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1964, pp. 16-20.

Shils, Edward. "Leo Szilard, A Memoir." Encounter, December 1964, pp. 35-41.

Novick, Aaron. "Phenotypic Mixing." In John Cairns, Gunther S. Stent and James D. Watson (editors), Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of Quantitative Biology, 1966.
-- Hardcover (1992 expanded edition) 08779694076

Wigner, Eugene. "Leo Szilard." Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XL (1969) pp. 337-347.

Gruber, Carol S. "Manhattan Project Maverick: The Case of Leo Szilard." Prologue, Summer 1983, pp. 73-87.

Klein, George. The Atheist and the Holy City: encounters and reflections. Cambridge Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1990.

Includes two chapters about Szilard, as biologist Klein knew him 1955-1964. Translated from the Swedish Ateisten och den heliga staden, which won the Letterstedt Prize (Sweden's Pulitzer). Foreword by Lewis Thomas.

William Lanouette with Bela Silard. Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, the Man Behind the Bomb. New York: Scribners, 1992.

Most reviewers described this book as an enjoyable and sympathetic biography. Many people who knew Szilard agree. But others found it far from sympathetic. In my view, Szilard is unfairly portrayed as an erratic and unlikable man motivated by anxiety, eccentricity, and childish ego. His achievements are relentlessly minimized.

Bess, Michael. Realism, Utopia, and the Mushroom Cloud: Four Activist Intellectuals and Their Strategies for Peace, 1945-1989 -- Louise Weiss (France) Leo Szilard (USA) E.P. Thompson (England) and Danilo Dolci (Italy). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
-- Hardcover ISBN 0226044203
-- Paperback ISBN 0226044211

Marx, George. The Voice of the Martians: the quest for the nuclear chain reaction, a Hungarian version (50 years after). Budapest: Roland Eötvös Physical Society, 1994.

A delightful compendium of information about those Hungarian scientific geniuses sometimes known as Martians. One chapter about Szilard, and many other references to him.

Grandy, David A. Leo Szilard: Science as a Mode of Being. Lanham Maryland: University Press of America, 1996.

Based on Grandy's doctoral dissertation at Indiana University.

Dannen, Gene. "The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerators." Scientific American, January 1997, pp. 90-95.

Also available in translated editions of Scientific American in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Polish, and Spanish.

Shils, Edward. Portraits: A Gallery of Intellectuals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

One chapter about Szilard, as sociologist Shils knew him at the University of Chicago. The text is identical to Shils' 1964 Encounter article, which remains one of the best evocations of Szilard.

Fizikai Szemle, 1998-02. The February 1998 issue of the Hungarian physics journal Fizikai Szemle was a special issue honoring Szilard. Many of the articles are available online at:
http://www.kfki.hu/fszemle/fsz9802/tartj.html
The April 1998 issue included further online articles:
http://www.kfki.hu/fszemle/fsz9804/tartj.html

Marx, George (editor). Leo Szilárd Centenary Volume: Lectures and contributions on the centenary of Szilard's birth, Budapest, on 9-11 February 1998. Budapest: Eötvös Physical Society, 1998. Paperback, 192 pages. No ISBN number.

Almost 30 contributors, including 3 Nobel Laureates, recall and assess Szilard's impact on their lives and the world. A unique volume of recollections.

Page created December 21, 1997
Updated September 17, 2021 to remove Amazon Associate links
URL: http://www.dannen.com/biblio.html
Gene Dannen / gene@dannen.com

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