Recently the successful trial of the Large Hadron Collider brought the awesome power and mystery of the atom once again to the attention of many outside the physics community. The history of atomic science is the subject of this issue of FOCUS on Global Re-sources, in particular the Manhattan Project and development of the first nuclear weapon during World War II.

The topic was chosen by the Center's Liberal Arts Interest Group, a group formed within the CRL membership to identify primary source materials for use in undergraduate teaching and research. The group determined that Manhattan Project resources could contribute to upcoming advanced seminars in history at a number of CRL universities and colleges.

CRL digitized key materials for use in those seminars, and this issue points to some of them. As Janet Farrell Brodie of Claremont Graduate University notes in her introduction to the collection, this material contradicts or raises new interpretive possibilities with regard to long-held narratives about the Manhattan Project. We hope that this sampling also serves as an introduction to other CRL holdings on the subject, available through interlibrary loan to researchers at CRL member institutions.