In the Science for Everyone Series we now come to the book Storming the Fortress of Fusion by G. S. Vornov. This book is one of the earliest Mir books that I have bought. [You can get the book here.]

The back cover of the book says:

The energy we get from the Sun is generated at its core in fusion reactions, in which hydrogen is turned into helium. If these reactions could be used on Earth, humanity would be able to provide itself with an abundance of energy. The problem of maintaining practical nuclear fusion has been one of the central problems of physics for
some thirty years, and yet only now has it become clear that a solution is in fact possible. This book explains in a lively and
informal way how the investigations have developed, the cleverness of the ideas used to tackle the problems, the ingenuity behind the
experiments, and the successes and setbacks encountered in dea ing with the capricious and cunning material we call plasma.
Intended for teachers, college students, and school pupils.

This book was translated from the Russian by R. S. Wadhwa and was first published by Mir in 1988.

Update: Jan 2020

The Internet Archive Link

The contents of the book are us under:

Preface to the English Edition 8

Preface to the Russian Edition 11

Chapter 1. Nuclear Fusion 13

Top-Secret Investigations (13).
The Emergence of the Problem (13).
Structure of the Atomic Nucleus (18).
Where Does Nuclear Energy Come from? (19).
Overcoming the Coulomb Repulsion (26).
What Goes On in the Sun? (28).
And What Goes On in a Hydrogen Bomb? (31).
What Determines a Reaction’s Rate? (32).
Hop, Step and Jump! (35).
Beam Plus Plasma (36).
What Temperature Do We Need? (38).
What Is Plasma? (45).
How a Charged Particle Is Affected by an Electric Field (46).
… and by a Magnetic Field (46).
Collective Motion of Plasma Particles (51).
The Idea of Magnetic Confinement (53).

Chapter 2. Pinching Discharges 62

Let Plasma Confine Itself! (62).
Here Comes the Compression! (64).
And the Neutrons! (66).
Theta Pinch (73).
Plasma Focus (78).
Battlefield Map (82).

Chapter 3. Magnetic Traps 85

First Experiments (91).
“Ioffe Bars”. The “Minimum E” Principle (101).
Other Instabilities (108).
Brute Force Method (109).
Tandem Traps (111).
Looking at the Battlefield Maps (117).

Chapter 4. Stellarator 120

Let’s Close the Trap! (120).
Divertor (129).
Helical Winding. Shear (131).
The Beginning of Cooperation (136).
While Neighbours Flourish (146).

Chapter 5. Tokamak 150

Balloon Effect (153).
Childhood (155).
Tokamak-1 (156).

Chapter 6. The Heating Problem 171

A Tokamak in Every Household (171).
How to Heat Plasmas (176).
Adiabatic Compression (178).
Fast Atomic Beams (181).
Setting Up Charge Exchange (182).
Power Is Not All (185).
SHF-therapy of Plasmas (187).
Even High Power Is Not Sufficient! (192).
Divertor (195).

Chapter 7. 60 Million Degrees Kelvin in a Tokamak 198

Problems and Troubles (200).
Incredible (201).
Record Set at Night (204).
What Next? (207).
Attack on a Wide Front (209).

Chapter 8. The Renaissance of Stellarators 219

It Still Does Not Work. Why? (219).
Better to Stitch Anew Than to Sow On Patches! (223).
Life Is No Easier for Electrical Engineers Than It Is for Physicists (224).
When a Stellarator Works As a Stellarator (228).
The Next Step in the Stellarator Programme (235).
Administration Again (241).

Chapter 9. Inertial Confinement 243

Suppose the Plasma Is Not Confined at All? (246).
First Estimates (247).
What to Do? (248).
Let Us First Try with Nine (252).
Forward to the Attack (258).
The Heat Transfer Rate Is Too Low! (260).
The Heat Transfer Rate Is Too High! (261).
The Light Pressure Is Three Million Atmospheres! (262).
The More Complex the Target, the Simpler the Laser (264).
Lasers for Controlled Fusion (271).
Laser Reactor (275).
Other Methods (277).
Another Look at the Battlefield Map (282).

Chapter 10. Muon Catalysis. 284

Persistence of Singles or the Role of Academic Science (289).
It’s Impossible! (292).
Such Things Also Happen … (293).
Pocket Reactor (296).
How Much Do Muons Cost Today? (297).
Uranium Comes to Assistance (298).

Chapter 11. Fusion Reactor 300

A Hop Skip and a Jump (300).
How Does a Reactor Work? (304).
Problems, Problems,Problems … (309).
The First Wall (309).
Blanket (312).
Neutrons Are Also a Valuable Product (314).
How to Use Fusion Energy (318).
What about Tritium and Neutrons? (321).
The Economics (322).

Conclusion 325