Physicist and polymath, 'father of the atom bomb' J. Robert Oppenheimer was the most famous scientist of his generation. Already a notable young physicist before WWII, during the race to split the atom, 'Oppie' galvanized an extraordinary team of international scientists while keeping the FBI at bay. As the man who more than any other inaugurated the atomic age, he became one of the iconic figures of the last century, the embodiment of his own observation that 'physicists have known sin'. Years later, haunted by Hiroshima ...
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Physicist and polymath, 'father of the atom bomb' J. Robert Oppenheimer was the most famous scientist of his generation. Already a notable young physicist before WWII, during the race to split the atom, 'Oppie' galvanized an extraordinary team of international scientists while keeping the FBI at bay. As the man who more than any other inaugurated the atomic age, he became one of the iconic figures of the last century, the embodiment of his own observation that 'physicists have known sin'. Years later, haunted by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer became a staunch opponent of plans to develop the hydrogen bomb. It was a battle he was to lose, faced by powerful advocates for massive nuclear profusion. In response, the US Atomic Energy Commission and the FBI worked behind the scenes to have a hearing find that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with America's nuclear secrets. American Prometheus is a compelling portrait of a brilliant, ambitious and flawed man and his involevement in some of the major events of the twentieth century. It is at once biography and history, essential to our understanding of our recent past - and our atomic future.
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I promise that you will find my review simple. I rate my books on the quality of the experience between the times I insert my book mark when I stop reading until the
time I remove my book mark and begin reading again. What I measure is the strength of positive anticipation of continuing the book reading. The strongest positive anticipation will get 5 UNICORN HORNS and the least ZERO UNICORN
HORN.
AMERICAN PROMETHEUS rated 5 UNICORN HORNS
Kaltesbier
Jun 3, 2010
Don't have time for books like this
I read another book entitled, "Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller". This book I did not enjoy, for it was both an American tragedy and an outrage. I didn't want to read the other book. I disposed of both books.
Metta
Jun 16, 2007
A great way to get interested in biographies
Among a raft of biographies that depend almost comically on Freudian psychology to draw studies of their characters, this one stands out as mostly avoiding that tool, and still managing to paint a picture of the person rather than of just his accomplishments.
Oppenheimer was very much a victim of the times in which he worked and lived, and the authors also do a very good job of sketching in just enough historical perspective to put Oppenheimer in a "place" historically without drowning readers in events and dates.
Overall, a nice way to break into biography for people new to the genre, because it reads much more like a novel than a textbook. Well deserving of its award-winner status.
