by
J.K. George's review
Good grief... where to start? This work is a stupendous and complete biography, with 600 pages of dense text as well as 120 additional pages of notes, quotes, bibliography, index, and illustration credits.
After an early German-Jewish childhood description of Oppenheimer, where it is clear that he came from very educated and bright European stock, he was fortunate to attend one of the most advanced elementary educational programs in New York City. A genius polymath, he exhibited a passion for science as well as liberal arts and graduated summa-cum-laude from Harvard in 1922. He proceeded to a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics at Goettengen University in Germany and did a post-doc at ... are you ready for this ... Cal Tech. Oppenheimer learned language skills easily and rapidly, with his English and German base, and added Dutch, French, and others such as Sanskrit (!) along the way. He read widely and enjoyed novels, poetry, French and Greek poetry, as well as Hemingway. And if that's not enough, he read all three volumes of Marx's "Das Kapital" in German on a three-day train trip across the US between California and NYC. Now if you feel more than a little bewildered with such brilliance, don't feel lonesome!
The book, however, can be difficult to read because of its obsession to detail. Some is needed, but the level is nearly overwhelming at times. Yet Oppenheimer's work as the leader on the U.S. atomic bomb project, along with the concerns of the brilliant scientists regarding the use of the weapon itself, and the civilian-centric targets in Japan, is riveting. There is a blizzard of names throughout, and Oppenheimer's choice as the head of the amazing Princeton, NJ Institute of Advanced Physics in 1947 is just mesmerizing. That portion of the story includes vignettes of Albert Einstein and many other genius-class scientists and thinkers.
All in all, this is a wonderful in-depth look at one of mankind's most brilliant - and in many ways tortured by his brilliance - persons. On a very base level, Oppenheimer was a very heavy life-long smoker, and that probably shortened his life. The two authors have pulled together a wonderful story of a gifted person; their work on the story took twenty-five years! It produced a biography worthy of their effort.