Robert Oppenheimer

Sobre el libro Robert Oppenheimer de David Rieff publicado por Yale University Press al 2026:

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) is nothing short of a world historical figure. He was one of the creators of theoretical physics, and during World War II he famously directed the Los Alamos Laboratory, where the first nuclear weapons were designed. After the war he advised the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and, when his security clearances were revoked during the Second Red Scare, became a martyr to McCarthyism, a victim of government power. Oppenheimer’s scientific accomplishments and instrumental role in American politics have been widely discussed in literature and, most dramatically, in the 2023 film Oppenheimer. In this biography, David Rieff takes a fresh perspective, focusing on the scientist’s personality and psychology and the events that explain his ‘closed down’ nature. He explores Oppenheimer’s Jewish identity, tracing his affluent yet sometimes traumatic childhood, the antisemitism he experienced while at Harvard and in the scientific community, and his affinity for the universalism offered by science.