Robert Oppenheimer : Letters and Recollections

Alice Kimball Smith; Charles Weiner
Stanford University Press
 9780804726207
0-8047-2620-5

Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) is one of the few American scientists who have become public and controversial figures in the twentieth century. This book adds a new dimension to the Oppenheimer story by.

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offering a look at the private man behind the public figure. It consists of letters spanning the period from his Harvard student days in 1922 to his departure from Los Alamos in 1945. The letters are supplemented by recollections of those who knew Oppenheimer and by his own recollections from an interview a few years before his death. 'A beautifully organized collection of letters and reminiscences ... The editors have interviewed those who knew and worked with him, stirred in the necessary explanatory background, and produced an account, both scholarly and highly readable, which throws fresh light on a man who will probably always remain something of an enigma. Amid devotional defense and almost rabid attack, their book is a model of objectivity.' New York Times Book RevieW 'An intimate, carefully documented, and honest book.'