Trinity (not to be confused with Frank Close’s book about the nuclear spies) is a pictorial record of the most important single event of the 20th century. It covers the build-up to the first nuclear bomb test in 1945 (codenamed Trinity), the test itself and its aftermath, including the devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The significance of the event was obvious at the time, ensuring the production of hundreds of photographs, most of which languished, gradually deteriorating, in an archive at Los Alamos for the second half of the 20th century. With the aid of 21st-century technology, these have now been scanned, digitised and restored. Presenting a selection of more than two hundred of them in exquisite detail, alongside a crisply informative text, provides a fresh perspective on a story that has been dulled by repetition over the decades, and opens our eyes once again to the implications of the Trinity test.

Even before we get to the all-important pictures, we are provided with one of the clearest and most accessible explanations of the nuclear physics behind the bomb (misnamed the ‘atomic’ bomb in popular literature) that I have ever read. Then comes the visual record of the birth of the Manhattan Project, which includes images of the arid region of New Mexico where the scientists would be housed and the desolate hutted township that rapidly grew up there. With apparently unintentional humour, we are told that the commanding officer in charge of the pre-existing bombing range selected as the test site ‘agreed to relinquish a tract’ of land; one can only speculate on what would have happened to him if he had not agreed.

The record also includes images of memos, plans and maps setting everything in perspective. Some of the most fascinating material describes and illustrates the special cameras and other equipment used to monitor the explosion, and the way they were housed in blast-proof bunkers that still provided a view of the