American Prometheus by Kai Bird - ISBN: 9781838959708
Paperback
Brilliant mind, devastating creation: Oppenheimer’s story of ambition and consequence.

American Prometheus

The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

$34.75

  • Paperback

    736 pages

  • Release Date

    1 June 2023

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Summary

Physicist and polymath, as familiar with Hindu scriptures as he was with quantum mechanics, J. Robert Oppenheimer - director of the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb - was the most famous scientist of his generation. In their meticulous and riveting biography, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin reveal a brilliant, ambitious, complex and flawed man, profoundly involved with some of the momentous events of the twentieth century.

‘Reads like a thriller, gripping and terrifying’ - Sunday Times

Book Details

ISBN-13:9781838959708
ISBN-10:183895970X
Author:Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
Publisher:Atlantic Books
Imprint:Atlantic Books
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:736
Release Date:1 June 2023
Weight:608g
Dimensions:53mm x 130mm x 198mm
A-Format
B-Format
American Prometheus by Kai Bird - ISBN: 9781838959708
130 × 198 mm
C-Format
A4
mm / in
What They're Saying

Critics Review

‘Reads like a thriller, gripping and terrifying by turns… No more absorbing biography will, Ipredict, come out this year, nor, given the dangers we face, a more important one.’ - John Carey,Sunday Times

‘Fascinating… Enthralling… All previous works on the topic are, in the nicest possiblesense, blown out of the sky by a book which is, in both the proper and metaphorical meanings,monumental.’ - Mark Lawson, Esquire


‘No previous biography has… matched the power, range and lucidity of Martin Sherwin and KaiBird’s Life… Its combination of meticulous scholarship and felicitous prose grasps the drama ofOppenheimer’s life in all its riveting complexity. ’ - Sunday Telegraph


‘A giant among biographies, a life story that at times reads like a thriller but which is alsodeeply authoritative and persuasively informative…. Magisterial.’ -Observer


‘This is a magisterial biography: a masterpiece that has taken decades to puttogether.’- Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday


About The Author

Kai Bird

Kai Bird is a contributing editor at The Nation and the author of several biographies, including The Chairman, The Color of Truth, The Good Spy and The Outlier. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur Writing Fellowship.

Martin J. Sherwin was a Professor of History at George Mason University. His other books include A World Destroyed, winner of the Stuart L. Bernath and the American History Book prizes, and Gambling with Armageddon.

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