American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,   ISBN:9780375726262

Customer Rating: 

Most 600 page biographies about well-covered individuals deserve their places as doorstops.

This work on J Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67) excels on all levels: history, biography, ethics and drama. The history includes science, politics, culture and global affairs. The biography covers the man, his family and his associates. A variety of ethical situations, considerations and responses are offered up. The lifelong drama of Oppie's character and the Atomic Energy Commission hearings on his security clearance are sewn together in a meaningful way.

The authors invested decades researching this work on the "father of the atom bomb". They are J Robert Oppenheimer supporters, but methodically attempt to portray a fair and balanced picture of this controversial man. As they note in the prologue, "To liberals, he became the most prominent martyr of the McCarthyite witch-hunt, a symbol of the right wing's unprincipled annimus. To his political enemies, he was a closet communist and a proven liar".

After reading this book, the echoes will continue and you'll think about the nature of man, a single man, and mankind today. As with Oppenheimer's life, there are no simple answers, only challenges and responses by mortal men.

The US has moved beyond the naive idealism of the 1920's and 1950's, but the threats of the nuclear age and the unresolved security and cultural dilemnas persist. Oppenheimer's answers remain relevant, even to those who disagree with him.

Customer Rating: 

The historical aspects of the book are interesting. However the continual defense of Oppie's leftists views get tired and cliched after a while. It's true that Communism had not been a proven failure around the world then as it is now that we have seen that it fails everywhere that it is tried (eg. Cuba, Soviet Russia, North Korea).
But there were plenty of men even then (especially military men) who knew that the Soviet communists were not to be trusted.
Thank God one of those men was Harry Truman who was not one of those cliched, America-hating, liberal Democrats that pass for leaders today.

I give the book two stars because of its extensive research. But it could have been much better if the authors had not injected so much of their own liberal bias into the book. But I guess you cannot expect anything else when the main writer of the book works for The Nation magazine.

Customer Rating: 

This new biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer ("the father of the atom bomb") is extremely interesting, well researched and well written.- It is the tragic history of an outstanding personality and scientist, of his triumphs over adversity, and then of the drama of being relentlessly persecuted by envious enemies who succeed in causing his lonely downfall.- A dramatic story which informs about the scientific effort at Los Alamos trying successfully to get a working bomb before the Nazis do.- In the end it is used not again the Nazis, as had been the intention, but, having ended the war in Europe, against the Japanese.- After Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the war there comes the
self-searching of the inventor and his ruthless persecution.- A "Must Read".-

Customer Rating: 

Excellent and well researched biography of Robert Oppenheimer -- his genius, his flaws, and the sad persecution he suffered at the hands of the anti-Communist fear-mongering in this country during the 1940s and 1950s.

Customer Rating: 

This biography of Robert Oppenheimer does an excellent job of capturing the legacy of this giant of the early cold war. Oppenheimer, a brilliant young physicist with left leaning politics, was recruited to head up the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer succeeded brilliantly, with the help of Lloyd Grove and the young scientists Oppenheimer recruited to work on the project. However, a few years later when discussions began of the building of a "super" or h-bomb, Oppenheimer expressed doubts about the morality of the weapon. His old politics were then used against him, and in the context of the McCarthy era witch hunts, Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance and effectively barred from ever again working for the government.

The book won multiple awards, all richly deserved. I highly recommend this book.