Area 51 is a desert land parcel just outside the abandoned Nevada Test and Training Range, where more than 100 atmospheric bomb tests were conducted in the 1950s. The secrecy surrounding Area 51 has made it fertile ground for conspiracy theories. In Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base, Jacobsen draws on interviews with 74 individuals with rare firsthand knowledge of the secret base to detail how several agencies — including the Atomic Energy