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gemmabenglish 's review for:
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
by Martin J. Sherwin, Kai Bird
i don’t read nonfiction generally (except occasionally a sad memoir that could be fiction if you didn’t know better). and uh yeah what a book to dip my toe into the nonfiction world. this is genius. the level of research that went into it is frankly bamboozling. it’s one of the best character portraits of anyone in anything ever (there i’ll say it). the personal details in here are just as fascinating as the big picture political stuff, and the political stuff is FASCINATING. i would have read a book just about him as a young person, i would have read a book about him just at los alamos, i would have read a book about him in his beach house post the security hearing, etc etc. i had already seen oppenheimer (2023) before this so i knew the broad strokes of his life story but i really really liked getting all of the details and nuances that didn’t make it in. checked the audiobook out on libby which i recommend 100% if you are up for 26 hours of oppenheimer, which clearly i was. lots and lots and lots to think about. oppenheimer himself said he didn’t want his life to be considered a tragedy bc that wasn’t ambiguous enough (what a guy) and this book was like why not make it an ambiguous tragedy then? sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too.