Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist
Written by Jennet Conant
Narrated by Fred Sanders
5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
James Bryant Conant was a towering figure. He was at the center of the mammoth threats and challenges of the twentieth century. As a young eminent chemist, he supervised the production of poison gas in WWI. As a controversial president of Harvard University, he was a champion of meritocracy and open admissions. As an advisor to FDR, he led the interventionist cause for US entrance in WWII. During that war, Conant was the administrative director of the Manhattan Project, oversaw the development of the atomic bomb and argued that it be used against the industrial city of Hiroshima in Japan. Later, he urged the Atomic Energy Commission to reject the hydrogen bomb, and devoted the rest of his life to campaigning for international control of atomic weapons. As Eisenhower's high commissioner to Germany, he helped to plan German recovery and was an architect of the United States' Cold War policy.
Now New York Times bestselling author Jennet Conant recreates the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century as her grandfather James experienced them. She describes the guilt, fears, and sometimes regret of those who invented and deployed the bombs and the personal toll it took. From the White House to Los Alamos to Harvard University, Man of the Hour is based on hundreds of documents and diaries, interviews with Manhattan Projects scientists, Harvard colleagues, and Conant's friends and family, including her father, James B. Conant's son. This is a very intimate, up-close look at some of the most argued cases of modern times—among them the use of chemical weapons, the decision to drop the bomb, Oppenheimer's fate, the politics of post-war Germany and the Cold War—the repercussions of which are still affecting our world today.
Jennet Conant
Jennet Conant is the author of Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist, and the New York Times bestsellers The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington and Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II. She has written for Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, Newsweek, and The New York Times. She lives in New York City and Sag Harbor, New York.
More audiobooks from Jennet Conant
The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great Secret: The Classified World War II Disaster that Launched the War on Cancer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fierce Ambition: The Life and Legend of War Correspondent Maggie Higgins Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Man of the Hour
Related audiobooks
Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in Its Darkest, Finest Hour Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Assassin: How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5's Secret Nazi Hunter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCronkite's War: His World War II Letters Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Chastise: The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957---The Space Race Begins Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Operation Columba--The Secret Pigeon Service: The Untold Story of World War II Resistance in Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Last Mission to Tokyo: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raiders and Their Final Fight for Justice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/512 Seconds Of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No More Secrets: My part in codebreaking at Bletchley Park and the Pentagon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBig Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Invasion: 1915: Germany's Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hunting the Nazi Bomb: The Special Forces Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Deadliest Weapon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barons of the Sea: And their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Triage: A History of America's Frontline Medics from Concord to Covid-19 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStanding Tall: Leadership Lessons in the Life of a Soldier Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Once In The Jungle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnola Gay: Mission to Hiroshima Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Miracles: Language, Power, and Alexander Graham Bell's Quest to End Deafness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chasing Heisenberg: The Race for the Atom Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Edison And His Life And Interviews Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Big for a Single Mind: How the Greatest Generation of Physicists Uncovered the Quantum World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
United States History For You
How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wright Brothers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Man of the Hour
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic hard to resist! A must read… loved it immensely!