- New Arrivals
Fiction- Historical FictionCrime & ThrillersMysteryScience-FictionFantasyPoetryRomanceChildren’s BooksYoung Adult
- Biographies & MemoirsHistoryCurrent AffairsTech & ScienceBusinessSelf-DevelopmentTravelThe ArtsFood & WineReligion & SpiritualitySportsHumor
Children’s BooksListsGift CardsWhat To ReadMy ListsGames- About & Help
- About Tertulia
- Membership & Co-Ownership
- Shipping & Delivery
- Orders & Payments
- Contact Support
- Send App Feedback
- Follow us
- Download the app
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
American Prometheus: The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture OPPENHEIMER
Reader Score
95%
95% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 7 reviews on
#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
Book Details
- Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Publish Date: Apr 11st, 2006
- Pages: 784
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.20in - 1.60in - 1.35lb
- EAN: 9780375726262
- Categories: • Science & Technology• Physics - Nuclear• Historical
More books to explore
About the Author
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.
More books by Kai Bird
What people are saying
"'American Prometheus' is a work of voluminous scholarship and lucid insight, unifying its multifaceted portrait with a keen grasp of Oppenheimer's essential nature."
Today’s most frightening technology is oft in the hands of far more hubristic people than Oppenheimer, whom Bird and Sherwin present with sympathy as a humanist… His life story is an inquiry into the question of how to contain science that has great potential for destruction.
Adrian McKinty is a crime and mystery writer.
I'd recommend 3 physics related biographies this year (only 1 of which was published this year) American Prometheus by Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin The Man From The Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya The Last Man Who Knew Everything by David Schwartz https://t.co/YU740Ufi5M
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
"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
"There have been numerous books about Oppenheimer but they can't touch this extraordinary book's impressive breadth and scope." --The Miami Herald
"The first biography to give full due to Oppenheimer's extraordinary complexity.... Stands as an Everest among the mountains of books on the bomb project and Oppenheimer, and is an achievement not likely to be surpassed or equaled." --The Boston Globe
What people are saying
"'American Prometheus' is a work of voluminous scholarship and lucid insight, unifying its multifaceted portrait with a keen grasp of Oppenheimer's essential nature."
Today’s most frightening technology is oft in the hands of far more hubristic people than Oppenheimer, whom Bird and Sherwin present with sympathy as a humanist… His life story is an inquiry into the question of how to contain science that has great potential for destruction.