American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER

Reviews

1. 

   Jim Braun – July 23, 2024

   Good read
   If you are interested in Robert Oppenheimer, this is a wonderful book about his life, accomplishments, and struggles. It is several hundred pages but and easy read and ten times better than the movie.

2. 

   HMS Warspite – July 23, 2024

   Oppenheimer, in all his complexity…
   This Pulitzer Prize-winning biography makes a lengthy and strenuous effort to capture J. Robert Oppenheimer in all his complexity. The nuclear physicist Oppenheimer led the American effort to build the atomic bomb that ended the war with Japan in 1945. Oppenheimer would subsequently lose his security clearance in a dispute over the building of the hydrogen bomb.Oppenheimer had a long and interesting life, and the authors offer as much of it as they can in nearly 600 pages of text. The most interesting part of the story is of course the time at Los Alamos working on the first atomic bomb. The authors are unnecessarily ambiguous about the results of the bomb. Nothing else would have ended the war earlier.The dispute over the hydrogen bomb is covered better in Richard Rhodes’s book on the topic. The tangled in’s and out’s of Oppenheimer’s relationships with a number of known communists is covered in as much detail as can be stood. The bottom line is that Oppenheimer was foolish; it does not appear he was more than that. The book is cautiously recommended. The movie is better.

3. 

   David Narrett – July 23, 2024

   Oppenheimer biography
   This much heralded biography is superior on all counts. It offers a much deeper, richer, and more historically accurate understanding of Oppenheimer than is conveyed by the recent movie. The book is captivating.

4. 

   Kevin T. Keith – July 23, 2024

   Searching Portrait of a Compelling American Hero
   Bird and Sherwin have produced what must be the definitive biography of Robert Oppenheimer, finding his unique personality and his remarkable gifts in every facet of his life, from childhood to scientific/political triumph to his persecuted twilight. The book – 25 years in the making! – is exhaustively researched and illuminates the trajectory of his life in intimate detail from beginning to end.Oppenheimer’s reputation, of course, rests on his unprecedented and unequaled achievement in planning and running the Manhattan Project to its final earth-shaking success in August 1945, and secondarily on his post-war role as sachem of nuclear policy and his political destruction by Cold War hawks who resented his warnings about the threat to peace from unlimited nuclear competition. But Bird and Sherwin give each stage of Oppenheimer’s life its due, including his gilded childhood, his troubled educational years, his rise to scientific prominence as the reigning American exponent of the new physics in the 1930s, and finally his mordant recasting as, essentially, speaker for the dead in the unstoppable post-war madness. Though Oppenheimer’s life, from the late ’30s on, was shaped and dominated by the atomic bomb he birthed and regretted, each successive period in that life was filled with its own personal drama and with the characteristically quirky incidents in which Oppenheimer tended to enmesh himself, and which said so much about his complex personality. The result is a comprehensive and balanced reading of the man through the whole of his life; the Manhattan Project and its aftermath loom large, as they have to, but they do not obscure the fact that there was a real person underneath those historic events, and that person comes through in a rich, subtle, and – inevitably – somewhat inconclusive portrait.The authors do not shy away from writing their own opinions into the story, giving reasonable interpretations of the many controversial incidents in Oppenheimer’s life, but which are clearly interpretations nevertheless. The book is deeply researched and the events are reported with clear and extensive factual support; it is easy to read their reconstructions of the history as authoritative. It is necessary to remind oneself that other interpretations are possible, however compelling these authors are in their presentation. At the same time, the authors are open about identifying their own interpretations as such; the material seems fairly and honestly presented, and the authors’ conclusions are convincing.The story of the Manhattan Project has been told many times, and this volume adds little to what is already known, though it illuminates the terrible strain of the project on Oppenheimer in a powerful way. The dramatic story of the Trinity test is told here in personalized fragments of detail about numerous individuals – rather than a technical focus on the Gadget – that gives that history a new and unique meaning. The treatment of the AEC investigation that led to Oppenheimer being stripped of his security clearance and government advisory role is perhaps the strongest part of the whole book – a tour de force of historical research, reportorial detail, and logical interpretation that makes it abundantly clear how shockingly dishonest that process was, and what a contrived and deliberate campaign of personal destruction drove it. Throughout, Oppenheimer’s fascinating and often self-destructive personality is illuminated in intriguing detail. There is no part of the volume that does not make fascinating reading.It seems likely that “American Prometheus” will be the touchstone biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer for the foreseeable future (and, probably, forever: this will likely be the last major such work grounded so fully on primary research among surviving figures from Oppenheimer’s life). It is strongly recommended to anyone with an interest in Oppenheimer as a person, as a scientist, and as a world figure. It is not a major contribution to the history of the Manhattan Project in its practical aspects, but does illuminate many of the personalities involved and life on “the Hill” during the project. It is exhaustive and authoritative on the subject of Oppenheimer’s pre-war political dalliances and his post-war persecution. All in all, it is a moving, compelling, often heart-breaking study of an unique, difficult, indispensable American.

5. 

   brenda ritchie – July 23, 2024

   Purchased this true story as a gift and it was well received An thought provoking biography of the man who helped develop the nuclear bomb Well written and informative Great book about the man Oppenheimer Great read after seeing the movie

6. 

   Tudo conforme o combinado! Agrade̤o e recomendo. РJuly 23, 2024
7. 

   Miguel Barón – July 23, 2024

   Capturing the sanctum sanctorum behind the tale of such an enigmatic and controversial figure like J. Robbert Oppenheimer, by itself is a nontrivial effort. While reading through the pages of the book I could only imagine the amount of documents gathered and reviewed to deliver such a well-written and engaging narrative the way Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin did.At times I felt I was reading a novel, with twists, ups, and downs, and before I could realize I was fully immersed in the witch-hunting McCarthy era in which the most remarkable victim by far is the man whose face is on the cover.Oppenheimer’s life is full of shades of grey, worth being studied in the secular way the authors and the team of collaborators did. This is by far the most seminal work I have read that introduces you not only to the physics of the last century but also to the Shakespearean tragedy of the man who was betrayed by his own kind.

8. 

   P I Payne – July 23, 2024

   Has extensive coverage of Oppenheimer

9. 

   Sri Surya – July 23, 2024

   The book contains every minor detail. It is so interesting that by reading this book, we can feel as if we are in the story and can see what’s going on there.