Six decades after the dropping of the atomic bomb, its relevance to our lives grows ever more clear. No person was more aware of the far-reaching implications of this new, destructive technology than Manhattan Project physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-67.) As early as 1946, this supposedly unworldly scientist noted that the breakthrough weaponry would ultimately make all our major cities vulnerable to nuclear terrorist attack. The only defense, he cautioned, was a screwdriver capable of opening "each and every crate or suitcase." In this authoritative, large-scale biography, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin capture the complicated personality of this Atomic Age icon.