1.63k reviews for:

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Martin J. Sherwin, Kai Bird

4.33 AVERAGE

slevos's review against another edition

4.75

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

amelie5m's review against another edition

4.0

informative reflective slow-paced

bookenjoyer27848's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging inspiring slow-paced

sallysimply's review against another edition

5.0

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Well-written, interesting, engaging. I appreciated having such a deep dive into this.

parkerpermits's review against another edition

4.5

informative reflective medium-paced

problematique's review against another edition

5.0

dark informative inspiring medium-paced

homer1224's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous informative medium-paced

mcrammal's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

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I walked into this not knowing much about Robert Oppenheimer and feel as though now I have a better understanding of not only who he was as a man and a scientist, but what America was like during the war effort and the chaos that surrounded McCarthyism. I very much agree that people are shaped by their upbringing and like how the authors focused on that aspect of Oppenheimer, and how the way he was raised shaped the person he became and the decisions he made. 

nuclearranter's review against another edition

5.0

challenging informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

brandonadaniels's review against another edition

4.0

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This is the first biography I have read as an adult, and I’m not really sure how to rate biographies. This was incredibly long and exhaustive, which is probably what you want out of a biography. I think you could argue that Oppenheimer was one of the more interesting and more consequential people to ever live.

I listened to the unabridged audiobook, and I can say that it was a little hard to get used to. The audio has been clearly recorded in two separate sessions or by two different audio technicians and I guess part is the abridged version and part is what got put back in for the unabridged version. It was a little distracting and somewhat hard to get used to. Based on this though, I think I would have been just fine with the abridged version.