I picked up a copy of this from the local library after reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer (Oppie) was definitely one of the main characters in that event and came across as interesting, so I decided to seek out more info. American Promethius: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer ($50 at Amazon) was a hard read, as biographies often are. He definitely struggled through the teenage and early adults years to find himself, reading that struggle bordered on painful. As he finally made his way into physics you get a real sense of how much was going on in the 1900-1950 time frame, with a lot of people trying to figure out things we mostly take for granted these days.

It's interesting that he became the main main in the bomb effort, as he wasn't at all the image of a perfect administrator, tending towards being unorganized. But he was also smart enough to teach himself how to be more organized when the role required it. Both books present him as someone with a great understanding of the nuclear side of things, but not someone who enjoyed the tedium of testing. He seems to have been great at understanding what mattered.

Of course the challenge of Oppie is that he was associated - arguably apparently - with the Communist party prior to his involvement in the bomb effort. That didn't stop him from being selected as the lead for the project, but after the war when he opposed the "super" (hydrogen bomb) because he believed it would spark a serious arms race he eventually fell out of favor with some key people and ended up having his security clearance revoked. Even reading it now it's hard for me to know how much was real and how much vendetta/witch hunt, but it feels like the latter - bolstered by the fact that years later the Kennedy administration made amends to the extent they could.

The part I liked most was when he rebuilt his institute as a home for thinkers, regardless of topic. Einstein was there, many others. Not often we see this even today, but it's nice to have a few places that encourage those with ability to use it without distraction.

When I read biographies I like to look for the defining moment - when did they realize their potential? I rarely see it clearly, but in this case you get the sense of a hidden moment in early adult stages where he focused and chose a path, and then later when he decided to commit to the bomb effort while understanding that doing so was going to lead to path he would have rather not taken. I also like to assess whether I would have liked the person. Not that it matters, but maybe it's a way to test/hone the skills required to evaluate peers and leaders today. I think I would have respected his ability, not sure I would have liked him, but he seems like the person where if he liked you then you were likely to like him (sorry for that sentence), but if he didn't like you....

The book was written over a period of 25 years! I can't image taking that long to finish a book, but it finally got done. Recommended if you're interested in the history around the atomic era, otherwise not.