History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?

Average customer rating:

courageous souls-Do we plan our life challanges before birth?
Slow read
Karma is more than payback
So that's why . . .
not credible

Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth?
Robert Schwartz
Manufacturer: Whispering Winds Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Spiritual | Self-Help | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books

General | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0977679454
Release Date: 2006-12-16

Book Description

Courageous Souls explores the premise that we are all eternal souls who plan our lives, including our greatest challenges, prior to birth for purposes of spiritual growth. The book contains ten true stories of people who planned physical illness, having handicapped children, deafness, blindness, drug addiction, alcoholism, losing a loved one, and severe accidents. Because very different life challenges are often planned for similar reasons, readers who have not faced these specific challenges will nevertheless see themselves - and their motivations as a soul - in these stories. As readers come to realize that they themselves planned their lives, suffering that once seemed purposeless becomes imbued with deep meaning. Wisdom may be acquired in a more conscious manner; feelings of anger, guilt, blame, and victimization are replaced by acceptance, forgiveness, peace, and gratitude.

Customer Reviews:

courageous souls-Do we plan our life challanges before birth?.......2007-10-15

This book is FANTASTIC!
Everyone has a story and has things going on in their life.This book makes everything that happens to you make sense. It allows you to understand why you have ended up where you are in life.Why you have chosen certain paths.And allows you to understand and be at peace with other peoples choices and the way they live their life.
I just loved it.Everyone should have a copy.It is well written, easy to understand and informative.But above all..it just makes sense.And things seem alot more clear to me than they did before I read the book.I loved it.For anyone who needs alittle hope or clarity in their lives..read this book.

Slow read.......2007-10-12

This book has some interesting ideas but it is a slow read. Not too sure if I would recommend.

Karma is more than payback.......2007-10-11

This book really changed my perspective on my current life situation. I was quite negative about the situation I'm dealing with, feeling it was just the result of past lives in which I had incurred very bad karma and I would just have to live through it. But, after reading this book, I believe I am living this life because of contracts I made in the pre-birth planning. That changes everything for me - if I agreed to the challenges I'm working with because I wanted to help one I love, there can be no resentment, just gratitude for being able to help, and love for the one I'm struggling with. Thank you, Robert Schwartz, what a gift!

So that's why . . ........2007-10-08

If you ever want to get into the backside of your pre-birth planning of your life challenges, read Courageous Souls by Robert Schwartz. Want to know why you attract illness, accidents, birth defects? Want to know why you chose a life of alcoholism or drug addiction, or are around someone who has? Read this book. The stories, while may start out slow at first, are powerful and insightful. Just stick with them. Robert uses mediums who are able to access multiple guides at one time, and your primary guide and listen in on conversations between you and your soul group.

not credible.......2007-09-30

I got to p. 300 and started reading another book. I found this book painstakingly slow to read, the information provided by the mediums: farfetched, and the conclusions drawn by the author, hard to swallow. Often, when mediums are tired, their accuracy rate diminishes. I never heard of any of the mediums used in this book. Robert Schwartz makes everything so complicated when the subject matter is really quite easy to understand. The book just doesn't flow easily and it's not a page turner in my opinion. I'm a believer, but this book really is a waste of time and money. Read Journey of the Soul by Michael Newton, PhD. Instead of using mediums, he enters the superconsciousness of his clients and elicits information from them directly about their experiences on The Other Side.

Average customer rating:

The Cold War in a Nutshell
Revisionist history allows no differing with author's biases
well written
one of the best histories of the nuclear age
Living With The Bomb

The Bomb: A Life
Gerard J. DeGroot
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0674022351

Book Description

Bombs are as old as hatred itself. But it was the twentieth century--one hundred years of incredible scientific progress and terrible war--that brought forth the Big One, the Bomb, humanity's most powerful and destructive invention. In The Bomb: A Life, Gerard DeGroot tells the story of this once unimaginable weapon that--at least since 8:16 a.m. on August 6, 1945--has haunted our dreams and threatened our existence.

The Bomb has killed hundreds of thousands outright, condemned many more to lingering deaths, and made vast tracts of land unfit for life. For decades it dominated the psyches of millions, becoming a touchstone of popular culture, celebrated or decried in mass political movements, films, songs, and books. DeGroot traces the life of the Bomb from its birth in turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Kazakhstan to maturity in test sites and missile silos around the globe. His book portrays the Bomb's short but significant existence in all its scope, providing us with a portrait of the times and the people--from Oppenheimer to Sakharov, Stalin to Reagan--whose legacy still shapes our world.

Customer Reviews:

The Cold War in a Nutshell.......2007-01-19

Gerard J. DeGroot's "The Bomb: A Life" is one of the best single-volume histories I've read about the development of the atomic bomb and the effects the new weapon had on the world. In a conversational, highly readable style, DeGroot strikes a nearly perfect balance between describing the "nuts and bolts" of how nuclear weapons work and covering the political, military, moral and ethical issues associated with their development.

Well-organized chapters focus on specific aspects of "the bomb" during the Cold War. The Manhattan Project, the Trinity test and the use of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" at Hiroshima and Nagasaki receive considerable attention, making up about the first third of the book. Development of the thermonuclear "Super," a weapon orders of magnitude more powerful than the original Trinity bomb, is covered in detail from both the political perspective ("SHOULD we make it?") and the technical perspective ("CAN we make it?"). DeGroot tells about American nuclear testing in the Pacific and in Nevada, and the harmful health effects the tests had on nearby inhabitants despite Government assurances that the resulting radiation and fallout were nothing to be concerned about. He covers in detail nuclear weapon development in the Soviet Union, and, in slightly less detail, the programs in Britain, France and China. Those who lived through the Cold War will (fondly?) reminisce as DeGroot describes "duck and cover" drills, "Bert the Turtle" and fallout shelters, as well as "pop culture" music and movie references to nuclear weapons, in a chapter entitled "How We Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

Purist history students may be put off by the fact that DeGroot tends to inject his own opinions into the story, either directly or subtly. For example, "Like the elaborate exercises in the Nevada desert, American civil defence was a carefully stage-managed performance designed to pull the wool over the people's eyes." He also has an endearing way of couching the most serious subjects in humorous terms. For example, American civil defense survival projections were over-optimistic because they assumed that people would be together in their homes when the attack came. DeGroot writes, "A really cooperative enemy would time missiles to coincide with when the meal was done, the dishes tidied away and the family gathered around the television watching `Leave It To Beaver.'" I found the irreverence in "The Bomb: A Life" very refreshing. It does not in any way detract from the quality and importance of this comprehensive but manageable history of the Cold War.

Revisionist history allows no differing with author's biases.......2006-04-08

Gerard J. DeGroot promises the story of the nuclear weapon, "this once unimaginable weapon." What he delivers is a litany of every left-wing myth and distortion coupled with a politically correct, revisionist view of history that has the bad guys wearing the white hats.

Anyone disagreeing with the author's view is labeled, in one way or another, as a right-wing fanatic. DeGroot for example claims that "[s]ome believers in [nuclear] deterrence have taken their faith to the point of fanaticism." No such criticism is made of opponents of nuclear weaponry who have also taken their claims to the point of fanaticism. Any reasonable person recognizes that fanatics populate the fringes of any movement.

DeGroot handles Heisenberg, the German nuclear physicist, as if he were some kind of saint who single-handedly sabotaged German nuclear development to keep Hitler from having nuclear weapons. DeGroot treats Germany as if it were separate from the nation that brought the Nazi party into power by giving it a plurality of votes and whose tens of millions of citizens supported the most savage war in history with their blood and allegiance.

This is, at best, a highly arguable view of reality. DeGroot savages Gen. Leslie Groves, the organizational genius (which DeGroot reluctantly acknowledges)and paints him as a domineering military buffoon who always wanted the nuclear weapon developed as a weapon. DeGroot simply ignores the fact that creating a nuclear weapon was the point of the entire Manhattan Project. DeGroot, in keeping with politically correct academic attitudes, expresses no doubt in attributing evil to the United States in using atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is no room for argument in DeGroot's view and any opposing opinion is casually dismissed. Millions of Americans, both in the military and at home, in the aftermath of the carnage of Iwo Jima and Okinawa didn't share DeGroot's view. Decades after the event, DeGroot appears puzzled that nearly 60% of the American public still thinks the use of atomic weapons to bring the Pacific War to a close was justified.

DeGroot often expresses his personal opinions as fact. The notes and bibliography are scanty.

Much attention is paid by DeGroot to the results of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Little detail is provided as what brought this tragedy to the Japanese homeland, such as the estimated 10 million deaths of Chinese attributed to Japanese actions. In DeGroot's world, everything must be one-sided and it is almost always the United States that is the source of all evil.

Surprisingly, however, DeGroot does level mild criticism at some aspects of the Soviet Union. He describes Beria, a human monster, as having no qualms about the use of slabe labour, nor of working men to death. He then compares Groves with Beria.

Ultimately DeGroot's work is about the perceived evil of nuclear weaponry, another arguable proposition. He claims that atom bombs were ". . . developed by scientists whose quest for discovery caused them to ignore the implications of their work." If DeGroot actually understood what he's written in his own book, he would comprehend that many of the scientists working on the American development understood that the were fighting against forces that would eliminate freedom as a concept. But DeGroot, like so many academics, doesn't quite get the real world. He can write of scientists leaving their homes in Europe as a result of German persecution, knowing that they would never see their loved ones again because they would be murdered. DeGroot doesn't see that who had nuclear weapons made a big difference.

DeGroot moans that "[t]he Bomb is a weapon which reflects the flawed nature of human beings." Well, many would argue that war and conflict is ingrained in human nature, though DeGroot apparently tolerates no opposition to his views. (Say, isn't that evidence of a flawed nature?)

Ultimately, "The Bomb" is pop history and a history of the pop culture that has spread around the concept of nuclear weaponry. There are solid arguments on both sides of the issue, though only one side predominates here,which is not a characteristic of the writing of a true historian.

DeGroot does include a lot of detail about the development of nuclear weapons from theory to implementation in the United States and Soviet Union. (One of my heartiest laughs came when DeGroot describes China as being a "non-aligned" nation. In order to pursue development of nuclear weapons, Mao exported most of China's rice crop leading to the starvation of millions of Chinese. DeGroot says nothing of this death toll, hundreds of times greater than that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Likewise DeGroot says nothing of "non-aligned" China's willingness to absorb hundreds of millions dead in a nuclear war, convinced that China and its Soviet Union ally would survive. DeGroot has some interesting blind spots, it seems.)

DeGroot, it seems to me, is the a "kumbaya" kind of person: everything would be fine if we could all just get along. But Utopian ideals don't fit well with writing what could have been a fine, highly detailed objective and well-documented history of one of the most startling developments in human history. DeGroot may have wanted to write such a history, but he was unable to rise above his own bias.

Jerry

well written.......2006-02-12

Everything about the events that led to making of it and the events that led to sustaining the nuclear programme has been written very well. This one book says everything about the bomb !

one of the best histories of the nuclear age.......2006-02-03

DeGroot's history of the Age of Megadeath is one of the best I've read. It's gracefully written, well-illustrated and perhaps uniquely in this field, often funny; he has a very good, dry, sense of humour. It combines technological history and politics very deftly.

As a neat summary of the long history of the Bomb, this book will be worth reading in a few decades. It's the only book I've read, for example, that describes the terrifying Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' of 1961, which flattened everything in a 25km radius. Besides its explosive power, an astonishing aspect of this device is the fact that it only took Russian scientists 16 weeks to design and build, and that many of them regarded the task as boring and pointless. Even in the war-broken and poverty-stricken USSR, thermonuclear bombs had become 'ordinary'.

By the end of the Cold War, at least half of the USSR, and large areas of North America, were contaminated by nuclear pollution. As one American expert put it, 'We nuked ouselves'.

Living With The Bomb.......2005-12-27

This is the story of how a scientific discovery that holds the promise of unlimited benefits was exploited to provide the threat of unlimited destruction.

Gerard DeGroot describes the American World War II development efforts and examines the perceived threat of a German weapon that was the principle concern. He covers the Manhattan project and the contributors, Szilard, Groves, Oppenheimer, and the rest. DeGroot describes Werner Heisenberg's efforts to put together a bomb project, "For the rest of his life he was tormented by a need to prove that he had taken a moral stand against the Bomb, and an equally consuming need to prove that he could build one." The discussion is more about the motivations of the scientists and decision makers rather than technical detail. The book's examination of Soviet reactions to the American efforts starts with questions on how much to tell Stalin and what dropping the bomb will mean for post-war confrontations.

DeGroot explains the evolution from fission to fusion weapons, Edward Teller's desire for control, and Soviet reactions as the cold war settles over the second half of the century. He discusses the early tests in the Pacific, Siberia, and Nevada Test Site along with the tragic consequences to inhabitants. He points out the advantages the Soviet's had in spying, gaining information from the very beginning, particularly from Klaus Fuchs, while giving little away.

The author looks at social and cultural effects, in terms of movies, civil defense programs and even Miss Atomic Bomb contests in Las Vegas. Political topics include the "missile gap" and the various treaty initiatives. DeGroot includes coverage of anti-nuclear sentiment such as when "protestors at the Women's Peace Camp expressed their displeasure . . . by hanging soiled sanitary napkins and tampons on the perimeter fence of the American missile base."

Some errors in details are annoying. For example: the U.S. Air Force became an independent service in 1947, not 1946; Sandia laboratory was set up for research and development not for "mass manufacture" on Kirtland Air Force Base, not "Kirkland Air Force Base".

DeGroot cites the Brooking's Institute 1998 audit of the American nuclear weapons costs of $5.8 trillion and states that the Soviet nuclear effort "had virtually bankrupted" the USSR. This work gives us starting point for thinking about the costs of the cold war for all participants and what might have played out had the Bomb never been created.

Blessed Assurance: At Home With the Bomb in Amarillo, Texas

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Build the Bomb and Expect the End
Compelling Story for Everyone

Blessed Assurance: At Home With the Bomb in Amarillo, Texas
A. G. Mojtabai
Manufacturer: Syracuse University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Military Science | History | Subjects | Books

Arms Control | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Ethics & Morality | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Nuclear | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0815605080

Customer Reviews:

Build the Bomb and Expect the End.......2005-07-31

The author deals with the presence of the Pantex plant in Amarillo, the only final assembly factory for nuclear weapons, warheads and bombs, in the US, and the attitudes of residents toward the plant. She analyzes in some detail the personal and group philosophies of war, peace, safety, and the future.

She analyzes the concepts of safety in the views of residents, both the security provided by the bomb as a deterrent and the danger of the bomb as a provocation to nuclear war or to an attack on their town as a production center. Fascinating is her analysis of the religious views accommodating, or in a few cases opposing, the presence of nuclear weapons, and the future in light of their possible use.

She explores the various religious views of the End Time of churches in Amarillo. She gives attention to the views and attitudes of individual members of churches who work in the bomb factory.

Compelling Story for Everyone.......1998-12-08

I first read this book in college in a theory of religion class. But don't be put off by that. This is the story of the people in Amarillo TX who build nuclear warheads. Most of the community are born-again Christians who are Rapturists -- they welcome the end of the world. Their story is contrasted with those people in the town and all over who are against nuclear war. It is an unbelievable sociological tale, and Mojtabai writes with compelling impartiality. She tells the whole story in a way that reads like one of the best novels I have ever read. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in human nature. It will blow you away.

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Not For The Non-Professional
Gripping True Story
The best book on Oppie at IAS

J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Life
Abraham Pais , and Robert P. Crease
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Scientists | Professionals & Academics | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0195166736

Book Description

The late Abraham Pais wrote the definitive biography of Albert Einstein, "Subtle is the Lord," which won an American Book Award. As a distinguished physicist and Einstein's colleague, Pais combined a sophisticated understanding of physics with first-hand knowledge of this notoriously private individual, offering rare insights into both. It is his unique double perspective that makes his work so valuable. Now Abraham Pais offers an illuminating portrait of another eminent colleague, J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the most charismatic and enigmatic figures of modern physics. Pais introduces us to a precocious youth who sped through Harvard in three years, made signal contributions to quantum mechanics while in his twenties, and was instrumental in the growth of American physics in the decade before the Second World War, almost single-handedly putting American physics on the map. Pais paints a revealing portrait of Oppenheimer's life in Los Alamos, where in twenty remarkable, feverish months, under his inspired leadership, the first atomic bomb was designed and built, a success that made Oppenheimer America's most famous scientist. Pais, who was his next-door neighbor for many years, describes Oppenheimer's long tenure as Director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, but also shows how Oppenheimer's intensity and arrogance won him powerful enemies, who would ultimately make him one of the principal victims of the Red Scare of the 1950s. Told with compassion and deep insight, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most comprehensive biography of the great physicist available. It is Abraham Pais's final work, completed after his death by Robert P. Crease, an acclaimed historian of science in his own right.

Customer Reviews:

Not For The Non-Professional.......2006-07-16

While I generally agree with the authors of the reviews below that this book provides insight into Oppenheimer's character, the development of IAS, and the inner workings of the Manhattan Project, I did not find this biography helpful in understanding either Oppenheimer's scientific work or the wider scientific research in quantum theory in which he played a role. I took to reading the "science" chapters with my laptop, set to Wikipedia, at my side, because -- perhaps because he died before revising or expanding the chapters that he had completed -- Pais does not define, let alone explain, any of the concepts and theories underlying Oppenheimer's research, but merely summarizes those ideas as though he were addressing an audience of science professionals. While no scientist, I'm not a science illiterate. Yet I understood very few of the descriptions in this book of Oppenheimer's actual scientific work. Therefore, I'd recommend this bio to readers interested in learning more about Oppenheimer's life, the history of IAS and the birth of the atomic age, but not to those nonscientists who want to learn more about Oppenheimer's research.

Gripping True Story.......2006-07-06

A gripping review of the man who really created the atomic bomb and fought to stop the hydrogen bomb. Read this book and find out why

The best book on Oppie at IAS.......2006-04-19

There have been several good biographies of Oppenheimer in the past few years. As biographies the others are probably better. This book though has two real advantages over the others:

First, Abraham Pais was a physicist himself. He worked with Oppenheimer and knew all or most of the significant physicists involved with atomic energy during and after the war. His insights on the physics being done at the time is very insightful.

Second, Oppenheimer is most known for Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. But after that, after he lost his security clearance Oppenheimer was head of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. This is where Pais knew him and it is in this part of his life that this book excells.

Oppenheimer was an enigmatic person. He was certainly an accomplished physicist. Not perhaps the equal of the very best, but clearly on the first string. Oppenheimer's work in physics earned him what might be called an honorable mention in the history books. Oppenheimer's work as a manager of the project and as director of the institute required not brilliance in physics but managerial capabilities far beyond those exhibited by other physicists of the time (with the possible exception of Edward Teller).

Oppenheimer's expulsion from Government service over security issues was one of the travesties of the McCarthy era. It seems though that his subsequent work at the IAS gave him enough pleasure that he was not unhappy. He continued to work at the forefront of physics.

If you want to know more about Oppenheimer's life before and during the war, look to other books. If you want some insight into his later life and into the depth of his character, this is the best book I have found.

Barefoot Gen: Life After the Bomb - A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima

Average customer rating:

As a Japanese reader...
WE MUST READ THIS BOOK AS WE WONDER WHY OUR WAR DOES NOT ESTABLISH PEACE
Easy way to get a sense of a historical event.
Powerful, though stilted at times
Just like Maus, this is A MUST READ!!!

Barefoot Gen: Life After the Bomb - A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima
Keiji Nakazawa
Manufacturer: Last Gasp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0867194502

Book Description

classic Japanese autobiographical comic-art novel

Customer Reviews:

As a Japanese reader..........2007-06-24

Barefoot Gen - I grew up with this famous comic series by Nakazawa. It's about a boy called 'Gen' and his life in Hiroshima during the WWII and soon after the atomic bomb. Volumes 1 & 2 are probably the most important ones. After I read them in English, I just had to lend them to everyone I knew. If you read this story, you'll realise how silly to hear some popular opiniton 'Dropping two atomic bombs in Japan was necessary to end the war'. The author Nakazawa says that each and every event illustrated here is a true story. You'll see, for example, that two young brothers fight against each other for a little grain of rice. Gen trying to encourage a girl who used to be dreaming about one day becoming a professional dancer, but now her face was badly burnt by the bomb, although she still didn't know it - he refuses to let her see the mirror.

The bombs were dropped onto civilians in the two cities, and, in Hiroshima alone, 100,000 people, including children, elderly people and western prisoners of war, were killed instantly, and the pain they suffered from it was tremendous. The way some of Gen's family members, including a new born baby sister, were slowly dying is simply too sad to look at. But the reality is that it actually took place and was caused by human hands.

I sincerely hope that many people will find the opportunity to read this book at least once in their life-time, and I strongly believe that this book will enlighten the whole world with the message: 'What really happens when a nuclear bomb is dropped onto humanity', which hasn't really been talked about in history books for some reason. But I think it's time to face reality.

WE MUST READ THIS BOOK AS WE WONDER WHY OUR WAR DOES NOT ESTABLISH PEACE.......2007-04-12

In our present time this portal to the topic of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and our nature as the only nation to build and to use nuclear weapons, and against strictly civilian population centers may inform our moral consideration of the present failure of our total war alone against civilians to establish a peaceful and stable and democratic society.

This present volume serves as an excellent introduction to the topic. Centering on Hiroshima, as may supplement this strong introductory reading with the recent study by Prof. Takaki, or the new Racing the Enemy, which explores the lack of military reason for dropping the Bomb against an already defeated Japanese Empire. We may also read on this specific event of crisis the moving Letters from the End of the World, or HIroshima Diary, written as was Gen by eyewitnesses and civilian victims of this our nuclear holocaust. Hershey is also important to read of course, and the reissue of Hiroshima Mon Amour, but I keep returning to this child's eye view in Barefoot Gen.

We are fortunate in this reprinting for the informed and astute introduction by Art Spiegelman, the creator of the Maus series which does a similar though more symbolic treatment of the Nazi Holocaust. Art strongly recomends this first person account of a small boy on the morning of the Bomb, and its immediate effects upon himself and upon his family. Please read this book and remember. Our Popes continue to visit the Peace Park at Ground Zero in Hiroshima, to pray for peace and nonviolence and for the development of peoples.

Easy way to get a sense of a historical event........2006-07-20

The manga form of presentation makes reading about the prelude to this event easy and fast. The book seemed to be reasonably accurate with historical documentation and the visual format allowed the author to include detail that might otherwise have become difficult to work into the story. The clothing, clogs, air raid hoods, etc. that are be depicted add depth of information to a quick read.

Powerful, though stilted at times.......2006-07-19

Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen (New Society Publishing, 1983)

Keiji Nakazawa's four-volume graphic epic Barefoot Gen has become legendary in the field of graphic literature, and also, in no small way, out of it. While many Japanese artists working in every medium have examined the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their aftereffects, Nakazawa, who lived in Hiroshima at the time the bombs were dropped, has an understandably closer perspective than most others who have tried it. For sheer power, Barefoot Gen's only rival in the subgenre is the similarly legendary Grave of the Fireflies.

This eponymous first volume takes us through the life of Gen, an elementary school student, and his family in the months before the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Gen's father, while not a pacifist, is notorious in town for his speaking out against the war, which gets him and his family branded traitors. Because of this, they don't have an easy life. The family members try to find various ways to survive in the face of shunning at best, and aggression at worst, from the rest of the townspeople.

Do you need to be told that this is a book that's going to hit you in the face like a sledgehammer with its message? The artistry, or lack of same, in the delivery is the place where Grave of the Fireflies is clearly superior to Barefoot Gen, but while Nakazawa is not above letting his message get in the way of his story on occasion, it never happens for too long a period of time. Nakazawa's characters are well-drawn, and the story spends more time focused on its characters than on its message. There is a lot to be liked here, and a good deal to be mulled over, as well. Well worth your time. ****

Just like Maus, this is A MUST READ!!!.......2006-03-30

There are four books in this series and you MUST get em all!

First book is about a Japanes family near end of WWII whose father was anti war and realistically oriented man and criticism of rich people who plunged nation in war.

Second book is about a guy who walks through bombed Hiroshima and horror that A bomb can bring.

Third book is little more cheerful since it describes urchins who fight for survival and will to live blooming in greatest poverty and inhuman condition.

Fourth is conclusion and has very sad at moment, but is OPTIMISTICALLY ended.

Barefoot Gen Volume Three: Life After the Bomb

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Life After the Bomb

Barefoot Gen Volume Three: Life After the Bomb
Keiji Nakazawa
Manufacturer: Last Gasp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0867195940

Book Description

Volume three follows Gen, his mother and baby brother as they search for a place to rest in the bomb's aftermath. Facing rejection, hunger and humiliation, they come to realize that they still have--and can share -- self-respect, hope, and inner strength.

Customer Reviews:

Life After the Bomb.......2006-06-11

This is an incredibly moving graphic novel. In order to earn money to feed his mother and infant sister Gen agrees to take care of Mr. Seiji, an artist burned head to toe by the bomb. Mr. Seiji is kept in a room and left to die by his brother and his brother's family. The way in which Mr. Seiji's family treat him, calling him a monster, wishing he would would die so they could stop being incenvenienced, is in direct contrast to the way in which Gen takes care of his mother, and the orphan Ryuta who looks like his dead brother. The story is a perfect metaphor for humanity, civility, and the way in which people treat each other when times are difficult for everyone.

The artwork his excellent. Nakazawa's somewhat cartoony style makes the horrors seem that much more horrific. The burn victims, both living and dead, the maggots crawling through a living person's dead flesh, people vomiting blood, all have an amazing stomach turning impact.

And yet mixed in with all this is Gen's childish love, hope, and optimism. Despite the setting, he and Ryuta manage to find humor and sing songs.

This is a fictional story, but it is based on Kaiji Nakazawa's real life experiences which he went through as a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing. The names of some of the characters are the names of his family. The stories he tells are harsh and real and painful and good. Literature, in any medium, doesn't get any better than this.

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Level 7
One of my favorite Sci Fi books
Brilliant
Simple. Powerful. Timeless.
Terrifying, Memorable, and Unique

Level 7 (Library of American Fiction)
Mordecai Roshwald
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0299200647

Book Description

Level 7 is the diary of Officer X-127, who is assigned to stand guard at the "Push Buttons," a machine devised to activate the atomic destruction of the enemy, in the country's deepest bomb shelter. Four thousand feet underground, Level 7 has been built to withstand the most devastating attack and to be self-sufficient for five hundred years. Selected according to a psychological profile that assures their willingness to destroy all life on Earth, those who are sent down may never return.

Originally published in 1959, and with over 400,000 copies sold, this powerful dystopian novel remains a horrific vision of where the nuclear arms race may lead and is an affirmation of human life and love. Level 7 merits comparison to Huxley's A Brave New World and Orwell's 1984 and should be considered a must-read by all science fiction fans.

Customer Reviews:

Level 7.......2007-09-29

Published in 1959, Level 7 is presented as the diary of a military man who is permanently stationed thousands of feet underground in a self-sufficient bunker. His job is to sit in a roon awaiting the command to push a button to fire nuclear weapons at an enemy country. When the command arrives and the button is pushed, he is forced to deal with the consequences of a nuclear holocaust that wipes out life on earth as he knows it, and is left with nothing to do but await the fallout that must inevitably reach the bunker and slowly kill the few humans remaining on a dying planet.

Level 7 is bleak and terrifying, but it's just far-fetched and cold-war enough that it doesn't depress you too much. Read it and reflect on the self-destructive nature mankind can show, and the priority revenge and victory can take at the expense of quality of life.

One of my favorite Sci Fi books.......2007-01-05

What makes sci-fi and fantasy fun is the ideas. What makes great sci fi are those works that are still meaningful after decades of technical and social change.

Level 7 is one of those books. I read it for the first time 30+ years ago, and it's still scary. Nuclear winter may be less on our minds these days, but this tale will stick with you.

I have the the original hard back edition, but it's available in paperback now.

Brilliant.......2006-08-31

I have read this book during my schooldays, some 15 years ago, and it remained in my mind ever since. Im really happy that I finally found it at amazon and that i can wonder again into its fascinating and inspirational pages. Definitately the best story I ever read about the end of the world. And the ending.... ah the ending... i was with tears in my eyes...

Simple. Powerful. Timeless........2006-07-07

Powerful. If only because its related in such a simple matter-of-fact way up until the buttons are pushed. And then the mounting sense of ?? as you realise level by level that all humanity will die when level 7 dies.

Maybe I read too much into it, but the 7th level in Dante's inferno is populated by the violent, the assasins (Push Button Technicians who will release the bombs?) . The 7th level is also overwhelmed by a powerful stench (X127 thought he could smell the dried waste that took up space beside the dried 'food'.) Dante's 7th level had woods of stunted gnarled trees (the emotionally stunted inhabitants of level 7 unable to make real emotional connections to others? Willing suicides of the 7th level are perhaps equivalent to level 7's willingness to be dead to the outside world?)

Level 5's politicians and important men that fall into civil disorder (killing those believed responsible for the End) before their own end is reminiscent of Dante's level of wrath where they tear at each other with their teeth.

Except, no levels 8 & 9 in Roshwald's Hell.

Afterthought:
Once the people had gotten down to level 7, the level was permanently cut off from the rest of the levels and the surface. My question? How were they going to get back up to the surface after the 500 years and food ran out? And was ther no way to override this mechanism after the damaged reactor was discovered? Move up to level 6 or 5 (presuming it *was* just the water that was contaminated) and remain there until the reactor was fixed?

Though the impact would not have been nearly as tragic...

Terrifying, Memorable, and Unique.......2005-12-29

Level 7 represents the journal of Officer X-127, a member of an elite Armed Forces unit. X-127 has been ordered to the bottom-most layer (level 7) of a highly secure facility, where he is ordered to set off a massive nuclear attack. The facility is a city unto itself, four thousand feet underground and fully prepared to withstand a direct attack and the resulting radiation for many decades.

Chosen for their ability to follow orders and to withstand the confines of the facility, X-127 and his fellow officers must now come to grips with the fact that they may, in fact, never leave. The surface of the Earth has been transformed into a radiological wasteland, but those in the facility -- some of whom represent a "continuity of government" operation -- will be safe.

Or so it seems. Reports of radiation poisoning begin to filter in from the higher levels of the facility. With a gripping, impending sense of doom, Roshwald takes us into a journey into the true meaning of mutually assured destruction.

I first read this book upwards of 30 years ago. It has never left me. Was it because I was young? Impressionable? I don't know, but the book certainly left an indelible footprint in my mind that few, if any, other work can match. Whatever Roshwald constructed in Level 7 was utterly unique and memorable beyond description.

Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man

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A Long Fuse
good, dry scholarship
Great biography of Leslie Groves
great reading
Why I loved "Racing for the Bomb"

Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man
Robert S. Norris
Manufacturer: Steerforth
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1586420674
Release Date: 2003-03-10

Book Description

COLONEL LESLIE R. GROVES was a career officer in the Army Corps of Engineers, fresh from overseeing hundreds of military construction projects, including the Pentagon, when he was given the job in September 1942 of building the atomic bomb. In this full-scale biography Norris places Groves at the center of the amazing Manhattan Project story.
Norris contributes much in the way of new information and vital insights to our understanding of how the bomb got built and how the decision was made to drop it on a large population center. Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, writes, “The brilliant engineer who commanded [the Manhattan Project] has never had his due. Groves finally emerges as the historic, tough, larger-than-life leader who made the atomic bomb happen and gave shape to the atomic age.” Groves’s hard work and numerous innovations during World War II also had a lasting imprint on the Cold War that followed. Procedures and practices developed during the Manhattan Project became the building blocks of the “national security state” and the “military-industrial complex.”
“I had always thought of General Leslie Groves as a fringe character in the story of the atomic bomb,” says Seymour Hersh, “a military martinet widely ridiculed by the nuclear physicists. Norris has rewritten the history of the most important event of World War II and in so doing has given us the best account yet of the military colossus that built America’s first nuclear bombs.”

Customer Reviews:

A Long Fuse.......2002-10-27

As biographer Robert Norris himself concedes, there have been many accounts of the Manhattan Project since World War II, several biographies of Leslie Groves, and even Paul Newman's memorable depiction of Groves in the film "Fat Man and Little Boy." Norris hoped to achieve the academically definitive biography, and no one can accuse him of failing at that. He is thorough. In fact, there is unintended humor in the "racing" title: as late as page 214 the search for real estate for Hanford and Oak Ridge is just getting underway. Groves's bomb has a long fuse.

Leslie R. Groves entered West Point on the eve of World War I. When the United States entered the war, the Academy's curriculum was compressed into a two year matriculation in the belief that many new officers would be needed quickly on the European front. As timing would have it, neither Groves nor many of his fellow cadets saw action. What resulted, however, was a glut of peacetime officers, an undesirable situation for ambitious career officers like Groves. Eventually Groves's accomplishments would outrun his rank, a major political liability. In the end, however, Groves himself was his own worst enemy. Intelligent and self-motivated, Groves became an accomplished engineer at the Academy, though it would seem that as a cadet he acquired the skills without the polish. As an officer in the Corps of Engineers he was brusque and dogged, except with those who could advance his career. Superiors tolerated his rudeness and obesity because he could kick behinds and deliver the goods. In peacetime he might have been shuffled out; but as the Nazi shadow extended closer to home, a man of Groves's productivity would be annually disciplined for his interpersonal shortcomings and "punished" with greater responsibilities. It was thus that Groves became a major force in the construction of the Pentagon, and ultimately a secret weapons project based in the New York District of the Army Corps of Engineers, the so-called Manhattan Project.

To the uninformed, Groves's contribution to the production of the atomic bomb was as scoutmaster for a collection of scientific mad monk geniuses in the desert of New Mexico. In fact, Norris leaves the impression that Groves was more of an absentee landlord at Los Alamos. The real action was going on elsewhere, primarily in massive industrial complexes at Hanford, Washington, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In some respects the building of these two industrial facilities was as impressive as the making of the bomb. That Groves was able to build not one but two mammoth atomic factories in roughly eighteen months is staggering.

As Norris tells the story, Groves enjoyed a decent relationship with Robert Oppenheimer and most of the scientists working for him. He did not totally understand the intricacies of atomic physics; in truth, the entire project was a foray into the unknown. Where he excelled was in translating theoretical problems into practical management components which he executed against incredible odds: shortages of rare substances and wartime civilian labor, secrecy and security, political and military infighting, and concern over the German nuclear program, to cite a few. When his scientists were divided over opposing theories and techniques, Groves's favorite stratagem was simply to test both possibilities in laboratory situations and select the one that worked.

Which raises the question of costs and accountability. The funding of this massive secret project is probably a good subject for a separate work. Suffice to say that Groves drew his funding from an extraordinarily large but innocuously named account, and that funding was one problem he did not have to face, at least until after the war. Conveniently, there was in fact no one-certainly not his [many] senior officers-who could question the wisdom of Groves's expenditures and management techniques. He answered, nominally at least, to a civilian board appointed by Roosevelt, which included James Conant, President of Harvard. But from this narrative the board's primary relationship with Groves appeared to be running interference.

After Japan's surrender, Groves exercised a proprietorship over the newly confirmed nuclear technology, and he would parcel it out sparingly and reluctantly. He advocated an American hegemony of nuclear weaponry-no international control of atomic bombs, no sharing of technology with allies-and even within America he embargoed information to most government agencies, including the White House. Groves protected the stockpile, and since the weapons were stored as component parts, Groves could obfuscate the true strategic strength of the American arsenal as political needs dictated. Norris contends that Groves forged much of this nation's current nuclear philosophy during and immediately after the Manhattan Project.

New technology notwithstanding, the old politics would eventually derail Groves. In 1948, during his annual fitness review, Groves was told by Dwight Eisenhower to his face that his maverick days were over and that he would not be appointed chief of engineers. Eisenhower, who regarded Groves as a loose cannon, made it clear that too many officers had been rubbed the wrong way by his arrogance. No fool, Groves submitted his resignation and spent several years with Remington Rand in the early years of computer development.

Norris depicts Groves's role in the atomic espionage trials of the 1950's in a benign light, [Gregg Herken's new work depicts the General's involvement in a darker light] and I suspect that the author's closeness to his subject made him somewhat less critical of Groves's tactics and style. Overall, this is an extremely valuable work for several reasons. "Racing for the Bomb" is a commentary on the pros and cons of national crisis management, the dilemma of giving someone enough power to get the job done without creating a dictator. There is also a message here about contemporary nuclear proliferation. Have India, Pakistan, Iraq, and North Korea mastered their own Manhattan Projects, or is nuclear proliferation simply a matter of espionage and horse-trading? One can almost hear Groves saying, "I told you so."

good, dry scholarship.......2002-10-07

This biography fills a significant gap in the historical record: behind the incredible scientific and engineering triumph of the Manhattan Project, there was a master administrator. Leslie Groves is that administrator, the take-charge guy who knew how to inspire, find competent people to whom he delegated tasks, cajole and bully his way into the historical achievement of the first working atomic bomb. In this bio, you get to know who he was, how he operated, and what he did. There is no doubt he was a great and talented, if somewhat unsung, man.

Nonetheless, Groves' life and methods are not exactly something that would inspire a lay reader about the epoch. There are far better books for that, such as Rhodes' Making of the Atomic Bomb, which is the most readable and best reported and researched of the whole shelf of books on the subject in my opinion. No, this is a book of value principally for specialists in scientific and military history and for atom-bomb buffs. There was info I needed in it and could only find there, so it was most useful for a scholarly purpose. But it was not a fun read about a rich time.

Afterall, when contrasted to great politicians or scientists or adventurers, there is a reason why very, very few bureaucrats find a narrative niche: they are simply not as interesting or as comprehensible. Norris even says as much, when he admits there were not many layers to Grove: he was a competent and arrogant man, who when given extraordinary authority during the war was capable of achieving extraordinary things. At the end of the war, he refused to change along with the army and instead retired to a corporate position and as a curmugeon who corrected in excruciating detail the innumerable accounts that kept appearing.

I do not mean to diminish Norris' achievement here, only to put it into perspective for prospective readers. The prose is clear, if a bit lackluster. But this is very good scholarship and a useful addition.

Recommended for specialists only.

Great biography of Leslie Groves.......2002-09-03

The book is definitive, scholarly, yet dramatic and exciting. Indispensable for understanding how the atomic bomb came about. A necessary counterpoise to the prevailing scientist-based story of the development. Additionally Norris's description (meticulously documented by a vast quantity of letters and interviews) of Grove's childhood and professional years before WWII recreates a lost era when society's leaders and doers were on a higher plane than they are today.

great reading.......2002-07-17

This has to be the definitive biography of General Groves. The research is meticulous. The book reads more like a suspense story than a biography

I really enjoyed the book.

Why I loved "Racing for the Bomb".......2002-05-27

For those interested in the development of the atomic bomb, this book fills a gap, telling who made the American program succeeded where other nations failed or followed later. General Groves drove the project relentlessly to timely success with immense resources, personal determination, project management skills, and effective delegation. Without Groves, the world would have changed more slowly. A good read, if a bit slow on Groves' life before the bomb.

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Exceptional!

Time Bomb
Nigel Hinton
Manufacturer: Tricycle Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1582461864

Customer Reviews:

Exceptional!.......2007-09-13

Time Bomb is, simply, a superb book that I unreservedly recommend. Great characters - schoolboys during a long hot second world war summer - in a riveting situation: they find an unexploded bomb in the piece of land they treat as a playground. The bomb is the catalyst for everything; but around the schoolboys spins the rest of the world - their arguing secretive parents, their teachers and choirmasters, and best (or worst) of all, the engimatic Cap, who works his way into their friendship and enlists their support. While the plot works perfectly, the period details are just as good. Though ultimately meant for teenagers, I'd recommend this book to anyone. In a world of adults who read Harry Potter without shame, there surely must be a small space on large bookshelves for Time Bomb. Bravo!

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