Martin J. Sherwin

Martin J. Sherwin (born July 2, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York)[1] is an American historian. His scholarship mostly concerns the history of the development of atomic energy and nuclear proliferation.

Sherwin received his B.A. from Dartmouth College and his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was the long-time Walter S. Dickson Professor of English and American History at Tufts University until his retirement in May 2007. He is now a professor emeritus of Tufts and a University Professor at George Mason University.

He and co-author Kai Bird shared the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for their book on Robert Oppenheimer's life, titled American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Sherwin worked on the book for two decades before Bird, a writer (and not a historian), came on to collaborate in piecing all his research together.

Sherwin also wrote A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies, which won the Stuart L. Bernath Prize, and the National Historical Society's American History Book Prize. A previous book on nuclear policy was a runner-up for the Pulitzer.

Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis was published in October 2020 and received rave reviews from The New York Times Book Review and Booklist, among others.[2]

Sherwin serves on the board of The Nation magazine, to which he is a regular contributor. While a professor at Princeton University, he taught and mentored Katrina vanden Heuvel, now editor-in-chief of The Nation.

He lives in Washington, D.C. and Aspen, Colorado with his wife, Susan.