Martin J. Sherwin
Born	Martin Jay Sherwin (1937-07-02)July 2, 1937 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	October 6, 2021(2021-10-06) (aged 84) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Academic background
Education	Dartmouth College (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (PhD)
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	History of nuclear weapons
Institutions	George Mason University Tufts University Princeton University University of California, Berkeley University of Pennsylvania

Martin Jay Sherwin (July 2, 1937 – October 6, 2021) was an American historian. His scholarship mostly concerned the history ofnuclear weapons andnuclear proliferation. He served on the faculty atPrinceton University, theUniversity of Pennsylvania, theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and as the Walter S. Dickson Professor of English and American History atTufts University, where he founded the Nuclear Age History and Humanities Center.^[1]

Sherwin was born on July 2, 1937, inBrooklyn, New York, to Mimi (nee Karp) and Harold Sherwin.^[2] His mother was a homemaker who also worked administrative jobs while his father was a children's clothing manufacturer.^[3] He graduated fromJames Madison High School in Brooklyn after which he enrolled inDartmouth College aiming to pursue medicine. However, he went on to study geology and philosophy, eventually graduating in 1959 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. Sherwin earned his PhD in history at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles. His doctoral thesis, studyingHarry S. Truman's atomic strategy, became his first book,A World Destroyed.^[3]

After completing his bachelors, Sherwin briefly worked for theUnited States Navy, serving as an intelligence officer in Hawaii and Japan. He joinedTufts University as a member of the faculty in 1980 and established the Center for Nuclear Age History and Humanities at Tufts. He also worked with Russian physicistEvgeny Velikhov to establish a collaboration for students at Tufts andMoscow State University. He retired from Tufts in 2007. He also taught atGeorge Mason University andPrinceton University.^[3]

Sherwin's research focused onnuclear weapons, ranging from their initial development at theLos Alamos National Laboratory, as a part of theManhattan Project; theatomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; and theCuban Missile Crisis, a part of theCold War standoff between theSoviet Union and the United States in 1962. He advocated for better safety controls, improved communications systems, and an overall reduction ofnuclear warheads, arguing thatWorld War III was averted largely by chance and the threat of a nuclear disaster still loomed large.^[4]

He collaborated with co-authorKai Bird on a biography ofJ. Robert Oppenheimer, "father of the atomic bomb", titledAmerican Prometheus. Sherwin worked on the book for two decades before collaborating with Bird to finish it. Sherwin and Bird shared the 2006Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for the work.^[3]

Sherwin also wroteA World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies, which won theStuart 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.^[3][5][6]

Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis was published in October 2020 and received positive reviews fromThe New York Times Book Review andBooklist, among others.^[7]

Sherwin served on the board ofThe Nation, to which he was a regular contributor.^[8]

• A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacies (various editions, 1975, 1987, 2003)
• American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, (2005), with Kai Bird
• Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis (2020)

Sherwin was married to Susan (née Smukler), with whom he lived inWashington, D.C., andAspen, Colorado. They had a son and a daughter; his daughter pre-deceased him in 2010. He died in Washington on October 6, 2021, oflung cancer.^[4]

• Appearances onC-SPAN
• Martin J. Sherwin atIMDb as Martin Sherman
• Martin J. Sherwin atIMDb
• Profile at Tufts University (archived)

• 1937 births
• 2021 deaths
• 21st-century American historians
• 21st-century American male writers
• American male non-fiction writers
• Dartmouth College alumni
• Princeton University faculty
• George Mason University faculty
• Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners
• Tufts University faculty
• University of California, Los Angeles alumni
• Writers from Boston
• Writers from Washington, D.C.
• National Book Critics Circle Award winners

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