Boomtown: The Secret History of America's World War I Chemical Weapons Program and the Poison Left Beneath the Capital

The hidden history of America's first chemical weapons program—and the decades-long fight to expose it.

Beneath one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Washington, DC, lies a forgotten battlefield. During World War I, the United States launched a vast and secret chemical weapons program on the grounds of what is now American University and the surrounding Spring Valley neighborhood. It was the largest scientific enterprise in the world prior to the Manhattan Project. Nobel laureates and membe...