Kai Bird is the author of The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making
of the American Establishment and The Color of Truth: McGeorge
Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms. He coedited with
Lawrence Lifschultz Hiroshima’s Shadow: Writings on the Denial of
History and the Smithsonian Controversy. A contributing editor of
The Nation, he lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and
son.
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.
—"Four decades after his death, J. Robert Oppenheimer has finally
received the indepth, insightful, and judicious biography he
deserves. This book is a fascinating portrait of a brilliant and
tragic life, and of America in the nuclear age."
—Eric Foner
"This fascinating and thoughtful book brilliantly captures the
political and scientific struggles of the early atomic age.
Oppenheimer's triumphs and trials show how public policy,
scientific genius and private character become interwoven. Bird and
Sherwin have triumphed in turning their prodigious research about
the father of the bomb into a poignant narrative."
—Walter Isaacson
“This superb biography provides fresh revelations and penetrating
insights about the complex and fascinating personality of Robert
Oppenheimer. American Prometheus, is meticulously researched,
eloquently written and a joy to read. The account of his 1954 trial
is spellbinding.”
—Robert S. Norris, author of Racing for the Bomb, General Leslie R.
Groves the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man
“American Prometheus is the best--most thoroughly researched and
most convincingly argued--study of J. Robert Oppenheimer to date.
It is not only a great biography but also a cautionary tale about
the excesses of government in a time of fear. No one interested in
20th-century America can afford to ignore this book.”
—Robert Dallek
“The political drama is enhanced by the close attention to
Oppenheimer’s personal life,...restoring human complexity to a man
who had been both elevated and demonized.”
–Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Compelling, definitive...Funneling more than 25 years of research
into a captivating narrative, the authors bring needed perspective
to Oppenheimer’s radical activities in the 1930s, and they reprise
the familiar story of the Manhattan Project thoroughly...Where Bird
and Sherwin are without peer, however, is in capturing the humanity
of the man behind the porkpie hat.”
–Booklist, starred review
“A swiftly moving narrative full of morality tales and juicy
gossip. One of the best scientific biographies to appear in recent
years.”
–Kirkus, starred review
“A masterful account—a tour de force, 25 years in the making—of
Oppenheimer’s rise and fall, set in the context of the turbulent
decades of American’s own transformation.”
—Gerald Holton, Front page, Los Angeles Times
“Comprehensive, finely judged where it most matters, and sometimes
revelatory . . . Bird and Sherwin capture all the drama and
exhilaration and ironic glory (of Los Alamos) . . . and show how
well he anticipated our own world, where nuclear materials and
technologies percolate through shadowy networks.”
—James Gleick, Front page, Washington Post Book World
“A nuanced and exacting portrait.”
—Elizabeth Svoboda, Front page San Francisco Chronicle
“The definitive biography...Oppenheimer’s life does not influence
us. It haunts us.”
–Malcom Jones, Newsweek
“A work of voluminous scholarship and lucid insight, unifying its
multifaceted portrait with a keen grasp of Oppenheimer’s essential
nature...charm and bravado on the surface, Dostoyevskian darkness
underneath.”
–Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“In this stunning blockbuster, two accomplished Cold War historians
have come together to tell Robert Oppenheimer’s poignant and
extraordinary story.”
–Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs
“Superb...A vivid portrait is painted of a charismatic, immensely
human theoretical physicist, who was as talented as he was
complex.”
–Ike Seamans, The Miami Herald
"A masterpiece of scholarship and riveting writing that brings
vividly to life the complicated and often enigmatic
Oppenheimer."
—Eric Arnesen, The Chicago Tribune
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