1984 13

"What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researchers are likely to discover." (194)

When Winston is given the book, he's thinking that it will be more of a manual or a guide to how he should act as a follower of Goldstein. Instead, Orwell uses the content in that book to reveal some historical elements that hadn't been previously revealed. For example, he goes into detail about the danger that is the atomic bomb, and how the inventors of it still don't know anything about the long term risks for the people affected by them. The inventors of the atomic bomb don't realize that the long term health risks far outweigh the short-term effects of the blast until far later. This is an interesting conclusion to come to on Orwell's part, as the atomic bomb had just been used for the first time in 1945, and 1984 was written in 1949. The cancerous and other long term risks were not discovered until later.

Works Cited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon

Image:
http://calitreview.com/images/atomic_bomb_cameramen_grable.jpg