American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER

· Sold by Vintage
4.7
42 reviews
Ebook
784
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE ACADEMY AWARD®-WINNING MAJOR MOTION PICTURE OPPENHEIMER • "A riveting account of one of history’s most essential and paradoxical figures.”—Christopher Nolan

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • The definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress.

In this magisterial, acclaimed biography twenty-five years in the making, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin capture Oppenheimer’s life and times, from his early career to his central role in the Cold War. This is biography and history at its finest, riveting and deeply informative.

“A masterful account of Oppenheimer’s rise and fall, set in the context of the turbulent decades of America’s own transformation. It is a tour de force.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A work of voluminous scholarship and lucid insight, unifying its multifaceted portrait with a keen grasp of Oppenheimer’s essential nature.... It succeeds in deeply fathoming his most damaging, self-contradictory behavior.” —The New York Times

Ratings and reviews

4.7
42 reviews
A Google user
February 22, 2012
This is at most a lengthy op-ed and nothing of a scholarly biography. The authors clearly have an agenda in writing this book as they hint at in the preface. The entire book is a crafty combination of half-reported quotes, carefully worded opinions, and completely misstated facts all done with the purpose of leading the reader on a mindless journey to the conclusion already chosen for you. It wasn’t until part 5, after enduring many false statements regarding foreign policy as it pertained to the USSR at the time or the military/political decisions to use the atom bomb that I felt compelled to write this review. I shall focus on the inaccuracies in Part 5 as this might be considered the seminal portion of the work. This part focuses on the renewal of JRO’s security clearance (Q clearance) in 1954, and also draws on the earlier consideration of his post-war work speaking out against the National Security Policies in place from 1945-1954. The authors claim this was a “kangaroo court” and that Gray (chairman) did not ensure proper procedures were followed. After review of the AEC’s policy regarding security clearances, it can be noted that the proceedings were in fact carried out according to policy set forth by the AEC, and that it was NOT a legal proceeding. As such, JRO had no right to due process or rules of evidence as suggested by the authors. Instead, the board was to consider JRO’s “character, associations, and loyalty” in determining the “costs to the program” of losing the services of a person (JRO) “against any possible risks involved.” The authors do inform the reader to the extent JRO used his Q Clearance (he was one of the handful of persons at the time fully informed on all atomic programs to the smallest detail) to gain access to important and influential circles within the government and in the making of blanket statements against further development of all forms of atomic energy and weapons in an attempt to sway policy. Keep in mind not many people knew what was or could be with respect to atomic energy due to the secrecy involved at the time. At this time JRO was only serving in an advisory capacity and was not contributing to any scientific work being done by the AEC. Couple all of this with his spotty past politically, socially and during previous security interviews and it should not surprise anyone that the board weighed the pros and cons of continuing to let JRO have access to atomic secrets only to contribute to the cause by trying to sway public policy and concluded it was not a good “cost(s) to the program” to renew his clearance. The authors totally miss this as they guide the readers along a false pretense as to what an AEC security clearance and hearing should entail, and the attempts at discrediting the many witnesses and the board itself in the hopes of establishing JRO as some type of “McCarthyism” martyr. This is only one of many examples of the author’s agenda that permeates the entire work. If you enjoy reading and forming your own conclusions based on evidence from a well written biography you should save your time by reading another book. Let’s leave the op-eds to our Sunday edition of the newspaper.
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Scott Baron
July 3, 2013
I didn't know much about Oppenheimer aside from his involvement with the Manhattan Project. Well written account of the less well known aspects of his life and I would recommend it.
1 person found this review helpful
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Bill parke
January 28, 2016
Would War all history about. The f6fairplane and the pilots that flew them.very well written and very intertwining to me the reader.
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About the author

KAI BIRD is an award-winning historian and journalist. Executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography, he is the acclaimed author of biographies of John J. McCloy, of McGeorge and William Bundy, Robert Ames, and President Jimmy Carter. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (co-authored with Martin J. Sherwin), which was adapted into the Academy Award-winning film Oppenheimer. His work has been honored with the BIO Award for his significant contributions to the art and craft of biography. He has also written about the Vietnam War, Hiroshima, nuclear weapons, the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the CIA. He lives in New York City and Washington, D.C., with his wife, Susan Goldmark.

MARTIN J. SHERWIN is the Walter S. Dickson Professor of English and American History at Tufts University and author of A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies, which won the Stuart L. Bernath Prize, as well as the American History Book Prize. He and his wife live in Boston and Washington, D.C.

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