An accessible and expansive look at the development of the atom bomb, but those looking for a deeper understanding of...
Former University of Texas vice president Kunetka (Shadow Man, 1988, etc.) follows the long road to the atom bomb.
In this nearly 500-page book, the author has plenty of room to explore both the planning and building of the atom bomb. He begins with short biographical sketches of his two primary subjects, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) and Gen. Leslie Richard Groves (1896-1970) of the Army Corps of Engineers, who, in addition to heading the Manhattan project operation, also oversaw the building of the Pentagon. Although billed as the history of “the unlikely partnership that built the atom bomb,” that story is sometimes buried beneath the large cast of secondary characters. However, the narrative is often a fascinating look at one of the pivotal moments in both military and human history, and Kunetka deftly weaves together science, politics, and personal color to bring to life the extraordinary circumstances facing his subjects. The author also communicates both the urgency and the unpredictability of the entire operation. When Kunetka focuses on the interaction between Oppenheimer and Groves, he clearly illustrates their unique dynamic and the impressive productivity of their working relationship. However, given the sheer volume of information, those instances are few and far between. More often, Oppenheimer and Groves are footnotes to each other’s stories, while other men and women become the focus of each section. The book works best as an overview of the Los Alamos operation and the Manhattan project rather than an examination of Oppenheimer and Groves.
An accessible and expansive look at the development of the atom bomb, but those looking for a deeper understanding of Oppenheimer and Groves should look elsewhere—either Ray Monk’s Robert Oppenheimer (2013) or Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s American Prometheus (2005).Pub Date: July 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62157-338-8
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Regnery History
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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