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A review by nelsta
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Martin J. Sherwin, Kai Bird
4.0
This book came highly recommended to me, so I had high expectations for it going in. The beginning was slow, and due to several large technical issues with Audible, I nearly scrapped reading it altogether. I'm glad I didn't, however, because this book was very good.
American Prometheus, which has got to be one of the greatest book titles I've ever heard of, is a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the Atomic Bomb. Admittedly, I had a somewhat dim view of him going in because I felt he was a prima donna. (To be fair, I'm correct.)
Thankfully, this book came to his rescue and salvaged my opinion of him. While he was a prima donna (at least early in life), he was also a veritable genius. Like this book, Oppenheimer was a late bloomer. He matured slowly, but eventually transformed into a capable administrator of geniuses. His life (and this book) peaked with the Manhattan Project; almost everything afterward dealt with his political crucifixion at the hands of the House Un-American Committee. While this tragedy was interesting, and relevant, I noticed that once the Manhattan Project concluded it was just a slow slog toward the inevitable destruction of Oppenheimer's career. In fact, once the witch hunt portion concluded, the authors apparently agreed so much that they skipped ten years altogether and practically jumped straight to Oppenheimer's death in 1967.
It was obvious to me that the authors had a clear objective: they wanted to burnish Oppenheimer's name. I didn't mind this; as it turns out, they did a pretty compelling job. My main gripes with this book include its absolutely terrible audiobook production and meandering story. This audiobook had, without question, the poorest quality of any I've ever heard. The audio jumped, repeated itself, and varied in volume. I'm quite sure that there were snippets of the audio where a different narrator altogether was speaking. Audio issues aside, I felt that the story was not clear-cut and straightforward. Not only did it jump forward an entire decade in a few lines, it did not address Oppenheimer's legacy hardly at all. There were a few measly lines at the end about his children and his wife, Kitty, but otherwise the book ended quite flatly. For such an accomplished man, I felt that he was due something more eloquent than what we were given.
But this book wasn't all bad. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. The subject is absolutely fascinating and I felt the authors did a good job of turning Oppenheimer into a three-dimensional character. Despite their obvious intent to paint him in a good light, they did not skip out on Oppenheimer's character flaws and weaknesses. I felt they did a good job of helping me understand him as a whole. One of my favorite takeaways from the book was the indirect lesson I learned on why listening to political speech I disagree with is an important part of my political diet.
Overall, I rate this book four stars. It was very good despite its obvious flaws. It's definitely worth a read.
American Prometheus, which has got to be one of the greatest book titles I've ever heard of, is a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Father of the Atomic Bomb. Admittedly, I had a somewhat dim view of him going in because I felt he was a prima donna. (To be fair, I'm correct.)
Thankfully, this book came to his rescue and salvaged my opinion of him. While he was a prima donna (at least early in life), he was also a veritable genius. Like this book, Oppenheimer was a late bloomer. He matured slowly, but eventually transformed into a capable administrator of geniuses. His life (and this book) peaked with the Manhattan Project; almost everything afterward dealt with his political crucifixion at the hands of the House Un-American Committee. While this tragedy was interesting, and relevant, I noticed that once the Manhattan Project concluded it was just a slow slog toward the inevitable destruction of Oppenheimer's career. In fact, once the witch hunt portion concluded, the authors apparently agreed so much that they skipped ten years altogether and practically jumped straight to Oppenheimer's death in 1967.
It was obvious to me that the authors had a clear objective: they wanted to burnish Oppenheimer's name. I didn't mind this; as it turns out, they did a pretty compelling job. My main gripes with this book include its absolutely terrible audiobook production and meandering story. This audiobook had, without question, the poorest quality of any I've ever heard. The audio jumped, repeated itself, and varied in volume. I'm quite sure that there were snippets of the audio where a different narrator altogether was speaking. Audio issues aside, I felt that the story was not clear-cut and straightforward. Not only did it jump forward an entire decade in a few lines, it did not address Oppenheimer's legacy hardly at all. There were a few measly lines at the end about his children and his wife, Kitty, but otherwise the book ended quite flatly. For such an accomplished man, I felt that he was due something more eloquent than what we were given.
But this book wasn't all bad. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. The subject is absolutely fascinating and I felt the authors did a good job of turning Oppenheimer into a three-dimensional character. Despite their obvious intent to paint him in a good light, they did not skip out on Oppenheimer's character flaws and weaknesses. I felt they did a good job of helping me understand him as a whole. One of my favorite takeaways from the book was the indirect lesson I learned on why listening to political speech I disagree with is an important part of my political diet.
Overall, I rate this book four stars. It was very good despite its obvious flaws. It's definitely worth a read.