Book : Tuxedo Park A Wall Street Tycoon And The Secret...

-Titulo Original : Tuxedo Park A Wall Street Tycoon And The Secret Palace Of Science That Changed The Course Of World War Ii

-Fabricante :

Simon & Schuster

-Descripcion Original:

Review This must have been an extremely difficult book to write. Its subject, Alfred Loomis, never gave interviews during his lifetime and destroyed all his papers before his death. Few men of Loomis prominence and achievement have gone to greater lengths to foil history, writes author Jennet Conant. Had he not done these things, his name would be better known--and this probably wouldnt be the first biography about him. So who was Alfred Loomis? He was too complex to categorize--financier, philanthropist, society figure, physicist, inventor, amateur, dilettante--a contradiction in terms, writes Conant. Loomis established a private laboratory in New York and hired scientists whose work in the 1930s wound up making possible both the radar and the atomic bomb. These developments were essential to Allied victory in the Second World War. Conant is perhaps the only person who could have pierced Loomiss obsessive secrecy and written this book; she grew up with Loomiss children and other members of his family. Her grandfather, Harvard president James Bryant Conant, was one of Loomiss scientists. Tuxedo Park is an important book about the development of military technology in the United States; admirers of The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes and similar titles wont want to miss it. --John Miller Presents the story of financier Alfred Lee Loomis and his role in the American victory during World War II, discussing Tuxedo Park, the lavish safe haven he created for some of the worlds greatest scientists to meet and share ideas. From Publishers Weekly Alfred Lee Loomis (1887-1975) made his fortune in the 1920s by investing in public utilities, but science was his first love. In 1928, he established a premier research facility in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., that attracted such brilliant minds as Einstein, Bohr and Fermi and became instrumental in the Allies WWII victory. Conant, a magazine writer, draws on studies, family papers and interviews with Loomiss friends, family and colleagues (shes a relative of two scientists who worked with Loomis) to trace the story of the tycoons professional and social life (the latter fairly racy). At the Tuxedo Park lab, Loomis attracted top-flight scientists who experimented with sound, time measurement and brain waves. During WWII, he established a laboratory at MIT (the rad lab) where radar was developed. He also served as a conduit between civilian scientists and Roosevelts military establishment. Although he lost some of his top people to the Manhattan Project, the rad lab was a major contributor to the allies defense. In his well-publicized personal life, Loomis angered family members by trying to have his emotionally unstable wife institutionalized while he pursued an affair with another woman. Through Conants spare, unobtrusive prose and well-paced storytelling, Loomis emerges as a contradictory man who craved scientific accomplishment and influence, but rarely took credit for himself. Those interested in science or WWII history will appreciate this well-researched bio. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal More than a vivid biography of Alfred Lee Loomis, this is a bright and intelligent portrait of a season of science in America that changed history. Conant, who has been a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, Esquire, and GQ, follows Loomis, a son of privilege, through his several incarnations as lawyer, financier, and scientist. Using his immense wealth, Loomis, one of the few tycoons to survive the Great Depression intact, founded his own private laboratory in Tower House, his mansion within the exclusive New York enclave of Tuxedo Park. Here, he and the many scientific worthies he attracted conducted brainwave research as well as the seminal microwave studies that led to the development of radar systems crucial to Allied victory in World War II. Conant is so good at capturi