Fitzpatrick A. Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 - (PhD thesis)

Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1999, 340 pp.
This thesis (for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy) was accepted by the Department of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The American system of nuclear weapons research and development was conceived and developed not as a result of technological determinism, but by a number of individual architects who promoted the growth of this large technologically-based complex. While some of the technological artifacts of this system, such as the fission weapons used in World War II, have been the subject of many historical studies, their technical successors — fusion (or hydrogen) devices — are representative of the largely unstudied highly secret realms of nuclear weapons science and engineering.

Contents
Abstract
Introduction and literature review: why the h-bomb still matters
The fission bomb had to come first
The super and postwar computing: machines can calculate, but can humans?
Making light of the light elements
Fission before fusion and the rarity of atoms
Conclusion: the super, the system, and its critical problems.
Suggestions for further study
Appendix
Bibliography