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By Charles Thorpe

At a time whilst the long island undertaking was once synonymous with large-scale technology, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–67) represented the hot sociocultural strength of the yank highbrow. Catapulted to status as director of the Los Alamos atomic guns laboratory, Oppenheimer occupied a key place within the compact among technology and the nation that constructed out of worldwide conflict II. by way of tracing the making—and unmaking—of Oppenheimer’s wartime and postwar clinical identification, Charles Thorpe illustrates the struggles over the position of the scientist relating to nuclear guns, the country, and culture.

A fashionable highbrow biography, Oppenheimer maps out alterations within the roles of scientists and intellectuals in twentieth-century the USA, eventually revealing alterations in Oppenheimer’s character that coincided with altering attitudes towards technological know-how in society.

“This is an outstandingly well-researched booklet, a excitement to learn and exotic by way of the prime quality of its observations and judgments. it will likely be of certain curiosity to students of contemporary heritage, yet non-specialist readers will benefit from the readability that Thorpe brings to universal misunderstandings approximately his subject.”—Graham Farmelo, instances greater schooling Supplement

“A attention-grabbing new viewpoint. . . . Thorpe’s booklet presents the easiest viewpoint but for figuring out Oppenheimer’s Los Alamos years, that have been severe, in any case, not just to his lifestyles yet, for greater or worse, the background of mankind.”—Catherine Westfall, Nature

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