109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos [B1551]

2006 PB in nice clean condition. From the bestselling author of Tuxedo Park, the extraordinary story of the thousands of people who were sequestered in a military facility in the desert for twenty-seven intense months under J. Robert Oppenheimer where the world's best scientists raced to invent the atomic bomb and win World War II.

In 1943, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant, charismatic head of the Manhattan Project, recruited scientists to live as virtual prisoners of the U.S. government at Los Alamos, a barren mesa thirty-five miles outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Thousands of men, women, and children spent the war years sequestered in this top-secret military facility. They lied to friends and family about where they were going and what they were doing, and then disappeared into the desert. Through the eyes of a young Santa Fe widow who was one of Oppenheimer's first recruits, we see how, for all his flaws, he developed into an inspiring leader and motivated all those involved in the Los Alamos project to make a supreme effort and achieve the unthinkable.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "After visiting Santa Fe and seeing the plaque at the location (now a Mexican pottery shop), I knew I had to read the book. It is amazing that such an incongruous location could have been the gateway for the Manhattan Project! This was written almost 15 years before the movie Oppenheimer and it must have been an important source. Interesting stuff!"; "I loved this book! It was more about the people at 'the secret city' than about the projects. I really feel like I personally each person in this book."; "What a fascinating story and really well written. Conant digs deep into the people and personalities behind the Manhattan project and brings history alive. This is the best book I've read in a long time!"; "Excellent overview of the work at Los Alamos to create the atomic bomb. Much more accessible than Prometheus (the Oppenheimer tome) but no less interesting. Definitely would recommend to anyone wanting to get a true sense of the amazing work that was done there during the war. The fact that the author's grandfather was James Conant, one of the key figures on the Manhattan Project only adds to the narrative."; ""