I’m an emeritus professor of modern American diplomatic history at the University of California, having previously taught at Oberlin, Caltech, and Yale. I’ve also been chairman of the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum, where I was the Curator of Military Space. I’ve been fascinated—and concerned—about nuclear weapons and nuclear war since I was 12, when I saw the movie On the Beach. Then, as now, nuclear weapons and the (currently-increasing) danger of nuclear war are the most important things on the planet.
I wrote...
Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller
How did science—and its practitioners—enlist in the service of the state during the Second World War and become a slave to its patron during the Cold War? The story of these three men, builders of the bombs, is fundamentally about loyalty—to country, to science, and to each other—and about the wrenching choices that had to be made when these allegiances came into conflict.
Gregg Herken gives us the behind-the-scenes account based upon a decade of research, interviews, and newly released Freedom of Information Act and Russian documents. The ebook version has also been updated with new information on Oppenheimer in 2023. This book is a vital slice of American history told authoritatively—and grippingly—for the first time.
With a brand new introduction from the author, this is the complete story of how the bomb was developed. It is told in rich, human, political, and scientific detail, from the turn-of-the-century discovery of the vast energy locked inside the atom to the dropping of the first bombs on Japan. Few great discoveries have evolved so swiftly -- or have been so misunderstood. From the theoretical discussions of nuclear energy to the bright glare of Trinity there was a span of hardly more than twenty-five years. What began as merely an interesting speculative problem in physics grew into the Manhattan…
Although this book is something of a rival to my own and borrows heavily from my book—but with attribution—it is deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it received for its sympathetic portrayal of its main character.
The primary author, Marty Sherwin, was my dissertation advisor; he and I argued for many years, until his death, over the truth about Oppenheimer. Although I yield to no one in my response and admiration for Marty, my book is right.
Physicist and polymath, 'father of the atom bomb' J. Robert Oppenheimer was the most famous scientist of his generation. Already a notable young physicist before WWII, during the race to split the atom, 'Oppie' galvanized an extraordinary team of international scientists while keeping the FBI at bay. As the man who more than any other inaugurated the atomic age, he became one of the iconic figures of the last century, the embodiment of his own observation that 'physicists have known sin'.
Years later, haunted by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer became a staunch opponent of plans to develop the hydrogen bomb.…
Priscilla was an inveterate Oppie scholar, and an amazing journalist/historian. She was the first female wire service reporter in Moscow during the Cold War and probably the only person in history to interview—and get to know—both Lee Harvey Oswald and President John Kennedy.
A historian colleague believes that she was a CIA spy. I doubt that. But, if Priscilla had been a spy, she was a damn fine one.
The true story of the government conspiracy to bring down J. Robert Oppenheimer, America's most famous scientist.
On April 12, 1954, the nation was astonished to learn that J. Robert Oppenheimer was facing charges of violating national security. Could the director of the Manhattan Project, the visionary who led the effort to build the atom bomb, really be a traitor? In this riveting book, bestselling author Priscilla J. McMillan draws on newly declassified U.S. government documents and materials from Russia, as well as in-depth interviews, to expose for the first time the conspiracy that destroyed one of America's most illustrious…
Most readers interested in the story of the atomic bomb don’t realize that the weapon was primarily an engineering project, not a scientific one. (Why it was called the Manhattan Engineer District).
The man who built the bomb was really Groves, not Oppenheimer, who only helped design it. Norris’s book is fascinating for portraying Groves as a human being, not just a chubby general. Readers will recognize that Matt Damon was actually a pretty good choice to play Groves in the movie “Oppenheimer.”
COLONEL LESLIE R. GROVES was a career officer in the Army Corps of Engineers, fresh from overseeing hundreds of military construction projects, including the Pentagon, when he was given the job in September 1942 of building the atomic bomb. In this full-scale biography Norris places Groves at the center of the amazing Manhattan Project story. Norris contributes much in the way of new information and vital insights to our understanding of how the bomb got built and how the decision was made to drop it on a large population center. Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb,…
As it turns out, the Germans never got close to building an atomic bomb—largely because of some major mistakes at the outset (one of them made by their top nuclear chemist because of a crisis in his love life). Powers, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, created some controversy because of his portrayal of the man who didn’t build the German bomb. That controversy continues.
I once had to physically separate the author from his critics and threaten to remove disruptive protesters from the audience when I moderated a session on the history of the German bomb at the Smithsonian.
One of the last secrets of World War II is why the Germans failed to build an atomic bomb. Germany was the birthplace of modern physics it possessed the raw materials and the industrial base and it commanded key intellectual resources. What happened?In Heisenberg's War , Thomas Powers tells of the interplay between science and espionage, morality and military necessity, and paranoia and cool logic that marked the German bomb program and the Allied response to it. On the basis of dozens of interviews and years of intensive research, Powers concludes that Werner Heisenberg, who was the leading figure in…
Noam Chomsky has been praised by the likes of Bono and Hugo Chávez and attacked by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Alan Dershowitz. Groundbreaking linguist and outspoken political dissenter—voted “most important public intellectual in the world today” in a 2005 magazine poll—Chomsky inspires fanatical devotion and fierce vituperation.
In The Chomsky Effect, Chomsky biographer Robert Barsky examines Chomsky's positions on a number of highly charged issues—including Vietnam, Israel, East Timor, and his work in linguistics—that illustrate not only “the Chomsky effect” but also “the Chomsky approach.”
Chomsky, writes Barsky, is an inspiration and a catalyst. Not just an analyst…
The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower
"People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged."--Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky has been praised by the likes of Bono and Hugo Chávez and attacked by the likes of Tom Wolfe and Alan Dershowitz. Groundbreaking linguist and outspoken political dissenter--voted "most important public intellectual in the world today" in a 2005 magazine poll--Chomsky inspires fanatical devotion and fierce vituperation. In The Chomsky Effect, Chomsky biographer Robert Barsky examines Chomsky's positions on a number of highly charged issues--Chomsky's signature issues,…
