Items related to Inside The Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer
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'.
Oppenheimer was a man of diverse interests and phenomenal intellectual attributes. His talent and drive allowed him as a young scientist to enter a community peopled by the great names of twentieth-century physics – men such as Bohr, Born, Dirac and Einstein – and to play a role in the laboratories and classrooms where the world was being changed forever.
But Oppenheimer's 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.
As with Ray Monk's peerless biographies of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, Inside the Centre is a work of towering scholarship. A story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices and unimaginable destruction, it goes deeper than any previous work in revealing the motivations and complexities of this most brilliant and divisive of men.
Oppenheimer was a man of diverse interests and phenomenal intellectual attributes. His talent and drive allowed him as a young scientist to enter a community peopled by the great names of twentieth-century physics – men such as Bohr, Born, Dirac and Einstein – and to play a role in the laboratories and classrooms where the world was being changed forever.
But Oppenheimer's 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.
As with Ray Monk's peerless biographies of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, Inside the Centre is a work of towering scholarship. A story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices and unimaginable destruction, it goes deeper than any previous work in revealing the motivations and complexities of this most brilliant and divisive of men.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity." (The Times)
"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)
"Superlative." (Boyd Tonkin Independent)
"Illuminating." (Nature)
"[A] fine biography... Oppenheimer has already been served well by biographers. However, Monk here takes the scholarship to a new level." (BBC History Magazine)
Book Description:
"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)
"Superlative." (Boyd Tonkin Independent)
"Illuminating." (Nature)
"[A] fine biography... Oppenheimer has already been served well by biographers. However, Monk here takes the scholarship to a new level." (BBC History Magazine)
A story of discovery, secrecy, impossible choices and unimaginable destruction: Robert Oppenheimer, his life and the first atomic bomb.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherJonathan Cape
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 022406262X
- ISBN 13 9780224062626
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages832
- Rating
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