Kai Bird.
kai Bird & Martin sherwin
american prometheus: the triumph and tragedy of j.robert oppenheimer (2005)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) was the theoretical physicist who led the Manhattan Project - the team developing the atomic bomb during World War II. He was born in New York City, obtaining his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and his PhD at the University of Gottingen, Germany, under Max Born. He became a full professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1936.
In 1943 Oppenheimer was appointed to lead the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. In 1945 he was present at the first test of atomic bomb; it was used later that year in the bombings by the USA of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. After the war, in 1947, he was appointed director of the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton University, and became chairman on the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
In the 1950s Oppenheimer became a vocal opponent of the development of the much more powerful hydrogen bomb. His opposition led to conflict with Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, and to secret hearings on his loyalty. He was accused of being sympathetic to Communism, leading to irreparable (and unfair) damage to his reputation.
The Sunday Times wrote of this Oppenheimer biography: ‘Reads like a thriller; gripping and terrifying’. The Sunday Telegraph wrote: ‘Graspes the drama of Oppenheimer’s life in all its riveting complexity’/
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Kai Bird (born 1951) is an American columnist and author who obtained his BA in History from Carleton College and a M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University. In 2017 he became executive director Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York. Martin Sherwin (1937-2021) was a Professor of English and Amrican History at Tufts University. He was priviously at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley. He specialised in the history of nuclear weapons.
