Oppenheimer biography Inside the Circle by Ray Monk

Extracts

Extract: Inside the Centre by Ray Monk

The Duty of Genius

Ludwig Wittgenstein

An intelligent, yet emotionally honest portrait of one of the 20th century's influential, engimatic thinkers.

Monk's energetic enterprise is remarkable for the interweaving of the philosophical and the emotional aspects of Wittgenstein's life

Ray Monk's reconnection of Wittengenstein's philosophy with his life triumphantly carries out the Wittengensteinian task of &quot;changing the aspect&quot; of Wittgenstein's work, getting us to see it in a new way

This biography transforms Wittengenstein into a human being

Monk's biography is deeply intelligent, generous to the ordinary reader... It is a beautiful portrait of a beautiful life

Ray Monk&rsquo;s celebrated biography embodies Wittgensteinian philosophy at its heart while crafting an enthralling picture of the influential figure

Evening Standard, *Best Biographies of All Times*

Ray Monk is also the author of Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude and Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Centre. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton.

'Monk's energetic enterprise is remarkable for the interweaving of the philosophical and the emotional aspects of Wittgenstein's life' Sunday Times 
 
'Ray Monk's reconnection of Wittgenstein's philosophy with his life triumphantly carries out the Wittgensteinian task of "changing the aspect" of Wittgenstein's work, getting us to see it in a new way' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'This biography transforms Wittgenstein into a human being' Independent on Sunday 
 
'It is much to be recommended' Observer 
 
'Monk's biography is deeply intelligent, generous to the ordinary reader... It is a beautiful portrait of a beautiful life' Guardian

Ray Monk

An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity.

You don't need to know your quantum physics to be gripped by Monk's doorstop study of the momentous life of J Robert Oppenheimer… Monk serves his subject well by sparing us neither the worst nor the best in him.

[A] fine biography... Oppenheimer has already been served well by biographers. However, Monk here takes the scholarship to a new level.

Wonderful... Monk retells this great twentieth-century tragedy magnificently

An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity. It is a considerable achievement

Monk’s book is a tour de force...magisterial biography.

Meticulously researched analysis...a triumph of historical investigation.

Not just a great biography but a powerful work of art.

His deep research and lucid prose constitute a masterclass in how biography, done well, gets us closer to the mindset of an age than any other kind of inquiry.

The inspired philosophical biographer of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell now turns his attention to the nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the profound human dilemmas  of American science and the atomic bomb. This is an eagerly awaited and important book which will explore new boundaries in the writing of biography itself.

This fine, painstaking book makes most recent biography seem slight, even irrelevant.

You don’t need to know your mesons or your melons to be gripped by Oppenheimer’s discursive journey to the heart of the American atomic machine.

Oppenheimer is fortunate to have been given such an exemplary biographer.

Monk takes up Oppenheimer after having produced two of the greatest philosophical biographies of recent years.

Extraordinarily detailed and searching new biography.

Monk gives an illuminating analysis of Oppenheimer... [A] magisterial and moving book.

Ray Monk must be our finest living biographer of intellectuals: his earlier lives of Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell brought an exhilarating clarity to two philosophers who are usually treated with a peculiarly academic kind of foggy reverence. Inside The Centre is not for the faint-hearted, but it repays concentration.

Provides a rich, new account of the physicist.

Monk makes great strides towards fully understanding the phenomenon that was J. Robert Oppenheimer.

This is to scratch the surface of this mighty book, which feels suspiciously like the best biography I’ve ever read.

Exhaustive study ... generous detail ... biography about as well as it can be done.

This biography is exemplary in its precision.

With an astounding amount of detail, Ray Monk masterfully plots Oppenheimer’s life ... an extensive and unrelenting insight that reflects a man of equal intensity and genius.

The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer is among the most contentious and important figures of the twentieth century. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis to develop the first atomic bomb – a breakthrough which was to have eternal ramifications for mankind, and made Oppenheimer the 'father of the Bomb'. 
 
But his was not a simple story of assimilation, scientific success and world fame. A complicated and fragile personality, the implications of the discoveries at Los Alamos were to weigh heavily upon him. Having formed suspicious connections in the 1930s, in the wake of the Allied victory in World War Two, Oppenheimer’s attempts to resist the escalation of the Cold War arms race would lead many to question his loyalties – and set him on a collision course with Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunters.

Ray Monk

Praise for Inside The Centre

An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity.

You don't need to know your quantum physics to be gripped by Monk's doorstop study of the momentous life of J Robert Oppenheimer… Monk serves his subject well by sparing us neither the worst nor the best in him.

Superlative.

An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity.

You don't need to know your quantum physics to be gripped by Monk's doorstop study of the momentous life of J Robert Oppenheimer… Monk serves his subject well by sparing us neither the worst nor the best in him.

Superlative.

An extraordinarily rich biography, superbly researched and written with impressive clarity.

You don't need to know your quantum physics to be gripped by Monk's doorstop study of the momentous life of J Robert Oppenheimer… Monk serves his subject well by sparing us neither the worst nor the best in him.

Superlative.

Books by Ray Monk

Articles featuring Ray Monk

Extract: Inside the Centre by Ray Monk

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter