The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb is a short history of the origins and development of the American atomic bomb program during World War II. Beginning with the scientific developments of the pre-war years, the monograph details the role of United States government in conducting a secret, nationwide enterprise that took science from the laboratory and into combat with an entirely new type of weapon. The monograph concludes with a discussion of the immediate postwar period, the debate over the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, and the founding of the Atomic Energy Commission.