Kai Bird
AUTHOR

Kai Bird

Biographies & Memoirs | History
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Kai Bird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer. His new book is The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames. A biography of a CIA officer, The Good Spy was released on May 20, 2014 by Crown/Random House. Kai's last book was a memoir about the Middle East entitled Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 (Scribner, April 27, 2010). It was a 2011 Finalist in the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. He is the co-author with Martin J. Sherwin of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005), which also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the Duff Cooper Prize for History in London. He wrote The Chairman: John J. McCloy, the Making of the American Establishment (1992) and The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy & William Bundy, Brothers in Arms (1998). He is also co-editor with Lawrence Lifschultz of Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy (1998). He is the recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's writing fellowship, the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation's Study Center, Bellagio, Italy and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. He is a member of the Society of American Historians and a contributing editor of The Nation. He lives in Miami Beach.
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Featured Article: 12 Thrilling History Listens to Get Ready for Oppenheimer


Dubbed the "father of the atomic bomb," J. Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who gained notoriety for the role he played in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the very first nuclear weapon. After the atomic bomb was developed, it was deployed by the United States to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These listens provide historical context about the man at the center of Christopher Nolan's biopic.

Featured Article 12 Thrilling History Listens to Get Ready for Oppenheimer

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  • American Prometheus Audiobook By Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin cover art

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  • Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Audiobook By Kai Bird cover art

    • Crossing Mandelbaum Gate

    • Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978
    • By: Kai Bird
    • Narrated by: Joe Caron
    • Length: 15 hrs and 58 mins
    • Release date: 05-12-10
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 29 ratings

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  • Prometeo americano [American Prometheus] Audiobook By Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin, Raquel Marqués García - tran

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  • J. Robert Oppenheimer - Die Biographie Audiobook By Martin J. Sherwin, Kai Bird, Bernd Leineweber - Übersetzer, Klaus Bi

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  • The Good Spy Audiobook By Kai Bird cover art

    • The Good Spy

    • The Life and Death of Robert Ames
    • By: Kai Bird
    • Narrated by: René Ruiz
    • Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
    • Release date: 05-20-14
    • Language: English
    • 4 out of 5 stars 360 ratings

    Regular price: $20.25 or 1 credit

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  • The Outlier Audiobook By Kai Bird cover art

    • The Outlier

    • The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter
    • By: Kai Bird
    • Narrated by: Arthur Morey
    • Length: 27 hrs and 35 mins
    • Release date: 06-15-21
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 137 ratings

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