Synopsis

Standing at the pivot of the twentieth century, J. Robert Oppenheimer holds our imagination in his grip. From otherworldly aestheticism to the leadership of Los Alamos, from the corridors of power to political dejection—the arc of his life stands in for the large-scale trajectory of modern American science.

Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections marks the century since Oppenheimer's birth and the half-century since his infamous security hearing. It assembles essays written by leading historians for a 2004 conference in Berkeley, the home of his school of theoretical physics and the site of his group's first calculations of the design parameters for an atomic bomb.

Complementing the recent biographies, the volume marks the coming-of-age of Oppenheimer studies. Its essays discuss Oppenheimer's scientific creativity, his stature as an intellectual, and his hotly debated relationship to the Communist Party. They explore parallels to the Soviet atomic bomb project and the background to his postwar fall from grace.

The book is an ideal introduction to cutting-edge research on Oppenheimer for teachers, students, scholars, and the interested public.

Contents

• Introduction
• Cathryn Carson
  
  
• Oppenheimer as Physicist
• David C. Cassidy
  From theoretical physics to the bomb: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American school of theoretical physics
  
  
• Karl Hufbauer
  J. Robert Oppenheimer's path to black holes
  
  
• The Communist Question
• Gregg Herken
  Was Robert Oppenheimer a "closet Communist"? The debate and the evidence
  
  
• Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
  Robert Oppenheimer and the Communist Party
  
  
• Barton J. Bernstein
  The puzzles of interpreting J. Robert Oppenheimer, his politics, and the issues of his possible Communist Party membership
  
  
• The Soviet Comparison: New Insights
• David Holloway
  Parallel lives? Oppenheimer and Khariton
  
  
• Alexei Kojevnikov
  The making of the Soviet bomb and the shaping of Cold War science
  
  
• Postwar politics: The Oppenheimer affair in context
• James G. Hershberg
  "The jig was up": J. Robert Oppenheimer and the international control of atomic energy, 1947-49
  
  
• David Kaiser
  The atomic secret in red hands? American suspicions of theoretical physicists during the early Cold War
  
  
• Stephanie Young
  Something resembling justice: John Francis Neylan and the AEC personnel security hearings at Berkeley, 1948-49
  
  
• W. Patrick McCray
  Killing the messenger: Robert Oppenheimer and Caltech's Project Vista
  
  
• Richard Polenberg
  The fortunate fox
  
  
• Cultural Resonances
• J.L. Heilbron
  Oppenheimer's guru
  
  
• Charles Thorpe
  The scientist in mass society: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the postwar liberal imagination
  
  
• Robert P. Crease
  Oppenheimer and the sense of the tragic
  
  
• The Public Oppenheimer
• Daniel J. Kevles
  Scientists, arms, and the state: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the twentieth century
  
  
• S.S. Schweber
  Intersections: Oppenheimer and Einstein
  
  
• Jon Else and Peter L. Galison
  Oppenheimer in film: A transcript
  
  
• Afterword
• David A. Hollinger
  
  
• Guide to Further Reading