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Conant, Jennet : Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II

Simon & Schuster, New York, 2002

ISBN 0684872870

330, [1] pages, 8 plates, map, cloth, DJ, very good. From Booklist: Alfred Loomis, a fabulously wealthy financier and amateur physicist, built a private laboratory in a wealthy New York suburb, attracting the greatest scientific geniuses of his time and supporting research that helped the U. S and its allies prevail in World War II. Conant, granddaughter to one of the scientists who worked with Loomis, brings journalistic skills and close personal perspective to an extraordinary enterprise born of the intersection of commerce and science in the 1930s and 1940s. The fairly reclusive Loomis left little record of his achievement, but Conant gained access to the private papers of several of the scientists involved. Their work consisted of research on sophisticated radar equipment, navigation systems, and the atomic bomb, developed through Loomis' encouragement. The narrative conveys the excitement and immediacy of scientific discovery, the heightening tensions of war, and the budding debate about the ultimate use of atomic weapons at a crucial time in world history. Conant displays a real feel for the personal lives and sensibilities of the era's leading scientists and industrialists in a fascinating, never-before-told bit of American history. B17-1 ; 330 pages, Very Good in Very Good dust jacket

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