American Prometheus by Kai Bird

American Prometheus by Kai Bird

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.

Kai Bird is a contributing edityor at the Nation and the author of several biographies. He lives in Washington, DC and in Nepal, with his wife and son. Martin J. Sherwin is Professor of English and American History at Tufts University and author of A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies. He and his wife life in Boston and Washington, DC.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781843547044
ISBN 10	184354704X
Title	American Prometheus
Author	Kai Bird
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Atlantic Books
Year published	2008-01-01
Number of pages	736
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable