109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780743250085)

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.

Author: Jennet Conant
ISBN-10: 0743250087
ISBN-13: 9780743250085
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Language: English
Published: 05/08/2006
Pages: 448
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 8.38h x 5.60w x 1.12d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 06/18/2006 pg. 24