Memoirs

Library Journal

Sakharov was at once the brilliant physicist who created the hydrogen bomb and the humanitarian who won the Nobel Peace Prize. With his death last December, these Memoirs become timely testimony to his life, particularly his development, his motivations, and the influences shaping his actions. His account of Soviet nuclear testing and life among the privileged but closeted nuclear research community is compelling. Once he'd witnessed the biological effects of radiation, Sakharov changed the course of his life, and he details his several decades as a champion of Soviet human rights and world peace. His memoirs conclude with his release from a lengthy exile in Gorky in 1986, but Sakharov lived beyond this to see many of his convictions sanctioned through glasnost. Recommended for all libraries.-- Rena Fowler, Northern Michigan Univ., Marquette