Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center

Abstract

Revered biographer Ray Monk solves the enigma ofRobert Oppenheimer's life and personality andbrilliantly illuminates his contribution to therevolution in twentieth-century physics. In RobertOppenheimer, Ray Monk delves into the rich and complexintellectual life of America's most fascinating andelusive scientist, the father of the atomic bomb. As ayoung professor at Berkeley, the wealthy, culturedOppenheimer finally came into his own as a physicistand also began a period of support for Communistactivities. At the high point of his life, he waschosen to lead the Manhattan Project and develop thedeadliest weapon on earth: the atomic bomb. Upon itscreation, Oppenheimer feared he had brought mankind tothe precipice of self-annihilation and refused to helpcreate the far more powerful hydrogen bomb, bringingthe wrath of McCarthyite suspicion upon him. In thecourse of famously dramatic public hearings, he wasstripped of his security clearance. Drawing on originalresearch and interviews, Monk traces the wide range ofinfluences on Oppenheimer's development --- hisJewishness, his social isolation at Harvard, his loveof Sanskrit, his radical politics. This definitiveportrait finally solves the enigma of theextraordinary, charming, tortured man whose beautifulmind fundamentally reshaped the world