The Oppenheimer Case: Security On Trial
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
In one of the most shocking episodes of Cold War America, a nation turned on its own genius — and The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial chronicles the dramatic downfall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist who led the Manhattan Project to victory, only to be branded a security risk by the very government he had served. Philip M. Stern, in close collaboration with legal scholar Harold P. Green, presents a meticulous and gripping account of the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission hearings, in which Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance in a proceeding that many historians have since condemned as a politically motivated witch hunt, deeply entwined with the paranoia of the McCarthy era. With the authority of a seasoned investigative journalist, Stern uncovers the institutional machinery of fear, loyalty oaths, and ideological suspicion that made such a travesty of due process possible, arguing powerfully that Oppenheimer's persecution was less about genuine national security and more about settling political scores. The book stands as a landmark work of American political history — a searing indictment of a system that sacrificed one of its greatest minds on the altar of Cold War anxiety. With a foreword by Sir Solly Zuckerman lending additional scientific and moral gravitas, this account leaves the reader with an uncomfortable question: in a climate of fear, can justice ever truly prevail?
Author: Philip M Stern
Format: Hardback
Genre: American history
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
In one of the most shocking episodes of Cold War America, a nation turned on its own genius — and The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial chronicles the dramatic downfall of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the brilliant physicist who led the Manhattan Project to victory, only to be branded a security risk by the very government he had served. Philip M. Stern, in close collaboration with legal scholar Harold P. Green, presents a meticulous and gripping account of the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission hearings, in which Oppenheimer was stripped of his security clearance in a proceeding that many historians have since condemned as a politically motivated witch hunt, deeply entwined with the paranoia of the McCarthy era. With the authority of a seasoned investigative journalist, Stern uncovers the institutional machinery of fear, loyalty oaths, and ideological suspicion that made such a travesty of due process possible, arguing powerfully that Oppenheimer's persecution was less about genuine national security and more about settling political scores. The book stands as a landmark work of American political history — a searing indictment of a system that sacrificed one of its greatest minds on the altar of Cold War anxiety. With a foreword by Sir Solly Zuckerman lending additional scientific and moral gravitas, this account leaves the reader with an uncomfortable question: in a climate of fear, can justice ever truly prevail?