David Abromowitz ’78

1 Year Ago

Remembering Martin Sherwin

In writing about the new Oppenheimer film (Research, July/August issue), the reporter mentions that the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography on which the movie is based was co-authored by Professor Martin Sherwin (left). Marty deserves far more than a passing nod. He taught and researched at Princeton from 1973 to 1980, and during that time I had the joy of having him as both my policy conference leader and my thesis adviser.

Marty was a gifted teacher as well as an exceptional researcher and talented writer, having already produced A World Destroyed (1975), the award-winning definitive history of the development and decision to drop the A-bomb. In typical modest fashion, when Marty and co-author Kai Bird won the Pulitzer for the Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus, he told The Tufts Daily, “I think the Pulitzer Prize and a dollar twenty-five gets me on the metro.” I am sure I am not the only Princetonian who will take special pleasure while watching the movie in remembering Marty’s long impact on our lives.

Join the conversation

Plain text

No HTML tags allowed.

Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.