After seeing the movie.. I had to know MORE. About his life and everyone involved and the rest of the story we did not get to see. All of the research put into this book SHOWS SO MUCH! I loved that it was about him being brilliant but his friends were also this way, the communism speculation, then Kitty.. OH KITTY. I just loved this book!
informative slow-paced

It is always shocking that despite our feelings about Russia's show trials of the 30s, we had our own in the 50s, and Oppenheimer is a prime example. A decently senior bureaucrat, Strauss, was able to wage a personal vendetta against Oppenheimer, with the cooperation of the FBI, and successfully canceled the security clearance of a consultant who they could simply not have consulted with, one day before the clearance expired naturally. In the process, they made clear that Constitutional rights are meaningless, that historical relationships can be taken out of context at will, and that public servants dissent with policy at their peril. Against a dedicated adversary, even inconsequential errors can be blown out of proportion - and this has never been easier than today.

Fortunately, Strauss's machinations were discovered, and he too was ruined by his monomaniacal pursuit of a person who dared to disagree with him. And we all learned our lesson about trials with secret evidence that cannot be cross examined by the defendant, and about lobbying judges for verdicts and supplying those judges with secret information also not provided to the defense. Right?

The book was well written and well researched.
informative reflective medium-paced

4★: GOOD, BUT COULD’VE BEEN CRISPER. This is a complex story. It’s not just the story of one man or one event. It’s biographical facts, personality, and values... history, politics, and war... family, friends, and loyalty... science, evolution, and ethics... paranoia, power, and scandal... humanity, courage, and conviction. So many layers, and likely still countless missing pieces. I don’t know how America will ever collectively learn from its past when such tangled accounts as these are reduced to mere paragraphs in textbooks. >sigh<

I read this in preparation to watch the new 3-hour OPPENHEIMER movie that came out in theatres three months ago. Three hours = watch at home. American Prometheus currently has a 4.26-star average by 30,309 reviewers. I do recommend it to anyone interested in American history.
challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
challenging informative sad slow-paced
informative reflective medium-paced
informative reflective sad medium-paced