Awards

• Short-listed for Paddy Power Political Biography of the Year 2013 (UK)
• Short-listed for Paddy Power Political Book Awards: Political Biography of the Year 2013
• Shortlisted for Paddy Power Political Book Awards: Political Biography of the Year 2013.

Overview

A story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices and unimaginable destruction- Robert Oppenheimer, his life and the first atomic bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer is among the most contentious and important figures of the twentieth century. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis to develop the first atomic bomb - a breakthrough which was to have eternal ramifications for mankind, and made Oppenheimer the 'father of the Bomb'. But his was not a simple story of assimilation, scientific success and world fame. A complicated and fragile personality, the implications of the discoveries at Los Alamos were to weigh heavily upon him. Having formed suspicious connections in the 1930s, in the wake of the Allied victory in World War Two, Oppenheimer's attempts to resist the escalation of the Cold War arms race would lead many to question his loyalties - and set him on a collision course with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunters.

Full Product Details

9780099433538

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Reviews

Wonderful... Monk retells this great twentieth-century tragedy magnificently -- Ben Shephard Observer An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity. It is a considerable achievement -- Graham Farmelo The Times Monk's book is a tour de force...magisterial biography. -- Lisa Jardine Financial Times Meticulously researched analysis...a triumph of historical investigation. -- Gerard DeGroot Sunday Telegraph Not just a great biography but a powerful work of art. -- John Gray New Statesman

Illuminating Nature You don't need to know your quantum physics to be gripped by Monk's doorstop study of the momentous life of J Robert Oppenheimer. Monk serves his subject well by sparing us neither the worst nor the best in him -- Ed Caesar Sunday Times An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity. The Times [A] fine biography... Oppenheimer has already been served well by biographers. However, Monk here takes the scholarship to a new level BBC History Magazine Wonderful... Monk retells this great twentieth-century tragedy magnificently -- Ben Shephard Observer

The inspired philosophical biographer of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell now turns his attention to the nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the profound human dilemmas of American science and the atomic bomb. This is an eagerly awaited and important book which will explore new boundaries in the writing of biography itself. Richard Holmes His 800 pages of deep research and lucid prose constitute a masterclass in how biography, done well, gets us closer to the mindset of an age than any other kind of inquiry. -- Kathryn Hughes Guardian This fine, painstaking book makes most recent biography seem slight, even irrelevant. -- David Sexton Evening Standard You don't need to know your mesons or your melons to be gripped by Oppenheimer's discursive journey to the heart of the American atomic machine. -- Ed Caesar Sunday Times Oppenheimer is fortunate to have been given such an exemplary biographer. -- Gino Segre New Scientist

Author Information

Ray Monk is the author of Ludwig Wittgenstein- The Duty of Genius for which he won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Duff Cooper Award, and Bertrand Russell- The Spirit of Solitude. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton.

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