Audiobooks by Martin J. Sherwin

Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb: Young Readers Edition of AMERICAN PROMETHEUS: The Triumph and Trage

"A young readers edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus was the inspiration for the blockbuster film, Oppenheimer. This brand-new edition introduces the next generation to one of the twentieth century's most iconic and complex global figures. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant physicist who led the American effort to build the atomic bomb during World War II, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of the revolutionary weapon he helped create. Readers of all ages will witness the rise and fall of a scientific and historical icon in this masterful new edition. Exploring his childhood, his secret work on the bomb, his central role in the Cold War, and his tragic downfall, this quintessential biography is history at its finest. Filled with dozens of photographs and updated information, this riveting and deeply informative account is now available to a middle and high school audience. * This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing select photographs and the list of Historical Figures from the text."

Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin (Author), Nikola Hamilton (Narrator)

Audiobook

[German] - J. Robert Oppenheimer: Die Biographie | Das Hörbuch zum Kino-Highlight im Sommer 2023

"Das Hörbuch zum Kino-Highlight im Sommer 2023J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), der »Vater der Atombombe«, zählt zu den schillerndsten Figuren der jüngeren Zeitgeschichte. Für ihre glänzende Biographie des »amerikanischen Prometheus« erhielten der Journalist Kai Bird und der Historiker Martin J. Sherwin den Pulitzer-Preis. Exemplarisch lassen sie das Drama eines Forschers lebendig werden, der sich zwischen Erkenntnisdrang und ethischer Verantwortung entscheiden muss.Oppenheimer leitete das streng geheime Manhattan-Projekt in der Wüste von New Mexico, wo am 16. Juli 1945 die erste Atombombe gezündet wurde. Kurz darauf starben in Hiroshima und Nagasaki mehr als 200 000 Menschen durch die neue »Wunderwaffe« - die Menschheit war ins Atomzeitalter eingetreten. Erschüttert von der Zerstörungskraft seiner Schöpfung, engagierte sich Oppenheimer fortan gegen den Einsatz nuklearer Waffen. Das machte ihn im Amerika der McCarthy-Ära verdächtig. Er geriet ins Visier des FBI, wurde als Spion der Sowjetunion verleumdet und musste den Staatsdienst quittieren. Sein Privatleben wurde an die Öffentlichkeit gezerrt, seine Wohnung verwanzt, sein Telefon abgehört. Erst 1963 rehabilitierte ihn Präsident Kennedy. Über dreißig Jahre hinweg haben die Autoren Interviews mit Oppenheimers Angehörigen, Freunden und Kollegen geführt, FBI-Akten gesichtet, Tonbänder von Reden und Verhören ausgewertet und Oppenheimers private Aufzeichnungen eingesehen. Ihre beeindruckend gründliche Biographie gewährt intimen Einblick in diese charismatische Persönlichkeit, bei der Triumph und Tragik so nahe beieinander lagen.-"

Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin (Author), Sebastian Dunkelberg (Narrator)

Audiobook

[Spanish] - Prometeo americano: El triunfo y la tragedia de J. Robert Oppenheimer

"El libro en el que se basa la nueva película de Christopher Nolan protagonizada por Cillian Murphy. La biografía definitiva de Oppenheimer, el padre de la bomba atómica y una de las figuras más emblemáticas del siglo XX. Premio Pulitzer 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award 2005 Duff Cooper Prize 2008 El 16 de julio de 1945, en el desierto de Nuevo México, se detonaba en secreto la primera bomba atómica. Impactado por el poder destructivo de su creación, J. Robert Oppenheimer, director del Proyecto Manhattan, se comprometería desde entonces a luchar contra el desarrollo de la bomba de hidrógeno y contra la guerra nuclear. Sospechoso de comunista para los Estados Unidos de la era McCarthy, fue perseguido por el FBI, calumniado como espía de la Unión Soviética y obligado a dimitir de cualquier función pública. Su vida privada fue arrastrada del mismo modo hacia el esperpento; su casa fue allanada con micrófonos ocultos, y su teléfono, intervenido. No sería hasta 1963 que el presidente Kennedy lo rehabilitaría y, con ello, su figura obtendría otro cariz para los ciudadanos del mundo entero. Treinta años de entrevistas a familiares, amigos y colegas; de búsqueda en archivos del FBI; de análisis de las cintas con discursos e interrogatorios, y de hallazgos de documentos privados del físico nuclear dieron como resultado este monumental libro. Una biografía de una enorme minuciosidad que ofrece una visión íntima del científico más famoso de su generación; una de las figuras icónicas del siglo xx para quien el triunfo y la tragedia se unieron en un nudo gordiano. Críticas: «Se lee como un thriller, cautivador y aterrador por momentos. Sospecho que este año no aparecerá una biografía más absorbente ni, dados los peligros a los que nos enfrentamos, más importante que esta». John Carey, Sunday Times «La biografía definitiva [...] La vida de Oppenheimer no nos influye; nos persigue». Newsweek «Todas las obras anteriores sobre este tema quedan, por decirlo de la manera más amable, despedazadas, frente a este libro que es metafórica y literalmente monumental». Mark Lawson, Esquire «Esta imponente biografía, resultado de veinticinco años de investigación, reevalúa la figura de Oppenheimer, y ofrece uno de los retratos más complejos del físico hasta la fecha». The New Yorker «Un libro esencial». Time «Una obra de voluminosa erudición y lúcida perspicacia que une el retrato del multifacético Oppenheimer con la aguda comprensión de su naturaleza». The New York Times «Un relato magistral del ascenso y la caída de Oppenheimer, situado en el contexto de las turbulentas décadas de la transformación de Estados Unidos. Es un tour de force». Los Angeles Times Book Review «La primera biografía que da cuenta de la extraordinaria complejidad de Oppenheimer. Se erige como un Everest entre las montañas de libros sobre el proyecto de la bomba atómica y Oppenheimer, y es un logro que tal vez no será superado ni igualado». The Boston Globe «Excepcional y documentada con exhaustividad. Kai Bird y Martin Sherwin no solo explican la deslumbrante, emblemática y denigrante carrera de Oppenheimer, sino que también iluminan las tensiones de la cultura estadounidense que conformaron las nociones actuales de liberalismo y reacción». The Atlantic Journal"

Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin (Author), Carlos Torres (Narrator)

Audiobook

Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Prometheus comes the first effort to set the Cuban Missile Crisis, with its potential for nuclear holocaust, in a wider historical narrative of the Cold War-how such a crisis arose, and why at the very last possible moment it didn't happen. In this groundbreaking look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, Martin Sherwin not only gives us a riveting sometimes hour-by-hour explanation of the crisis itself, but also explores the origins, scope, and consequences of the evolving place of nuclear weapons in the post-World War II world. Mining new sources and materials, and going far beyond the scope of earlier works on this critical face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union-triggered when Khrushchev began installing missiles in Cuba at Castro's behest-Sherwin shows how this volatile event was an integral part of the wider Cold War and was a consequence of nuclear arms. Gambling with Armageddon looks in particular at the original debate in the Truman Administration about using the Atomic Bomb; the way in which President Eisenhower relied on the threat of massive retaliation to project U.S. power in the early Cold War era; and how President Kennedy, though unprepared to deal with the Bay of Pigs debacle, came of age during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here too is a clarifying picture of what was going on in Khrushchev's Soviet Union. Martin Sherwin has spent his career in the study of nuclear weapons and how they have shaped our world. Gambling with Armegeddon is an outstanding capstone to his work thus far."

Martin J. Sherwin (Author), Mark Bramhall (Narrator)

Audiobook

A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies

"Continuously in demand since its first, prize-winning edition was published in 1973, this is the classic history of Hiroshima and the origins of the arms race, from the development of the American atomic bomb to the decision to use it against Japan and the beginnings of US atomic diplomacy toward the Soviet Union. In the introduction, the author describes and evaluates the lengthening trail of new evidence that has come to light concerning these often emotionally debated subjects. He also invokes his experience as a historical advisor to the controversial, aborted 1995 Enola Gay exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, which leads him to analyze the impact on American democracy of one of the most insidious legacies of Hiroshima: the political control of historical interpretation."

Martin J. Sherwin (Author), John Lescault (Narrator)

Audiobook

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

"The inspiration for the major motion picture Oppenheimer, this is the definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress. American Prometheus is the first full-scale biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb,” the brilliant, charismatic physicist who led the effort to capture the awesome fire of the sun for his country in time of war. Immediately after Hiroshima, J. Robert Oppenheimer became the most famous scientist of his generation—one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, the embodiment of modern man confronting the consequences of scientific progress. He was the author of a radical proposal to place international controls over atomic materials, an idea that is still relevant today. He opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb and criticized the Air Force’s plans to fight an infinitely dangerous nuclear war In the now almost-forgotten hysteria of the early 1950s, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup, and, in response, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss, superbomb advocate Edward Teller, and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover worked behind the scenes to have a hearing board find that Oppenheimer could not be trusted with America’s nuclear secrets. American Prometheus sets forth Oppenheimer’s life and times in revealing and unprecedented detail. Exhaustively researched, it is based on thousands of records and letters gathered from archives in America and abroad, on massive FBI files, and on close to a hundred interviews with Oppenheimer’s friends, relatives, and colleagues. The book follows him from his earliest education at the turn of the twentieth century at New York City’s Ethical Culture School through personal crises at Harvard and Cambridge universities. Then to Germany, where he studied quantum physics with the world’s most accomplished theorists; and to Berkeley, California, where he established, during the 1930s, the leading American school of theoretical physics and where he became deeply involved with social justice causes and their advocates, many of whom were communists. The book follows him to Los Alamos, New Mexico, he transformed a bleak mesa into the world’s most potent nuclear weapons laboratory—and where he himself was transformed—and finally, to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, which he directed from 1947 to 1966. American Prometheus is a rich evocation of America at midcentury, a compelling portrait of a brilliant, ambitious, complex, and flawed man profoundly connected to its major events: the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It is at once biography and history and is essential to our understanding of our recent past—and of our choices for the future."

Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin (Author), Jeff Cummings (Narrator)

Audiobook