Gregg Herken is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

and

museum curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

who is Professor Emeritus of modern American diplomatic History at the University of California, Santa Cruz & Merced, whose scholarship mostly concerns the history of the development of

atomic energy Atomic energy or energy of atoms is energy carried by atoms. The term originated in 1903 when Ernest Rutherford began to speak of the possibility of atomic energy.Isaac Asimov, ''Atom: Journey Across the Sub-Atomic Cosmos'', New York:1992 Plum ...

and the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

Biography

In 1969, Herken received a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

from

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of C ...

.Peggy Townsend
"Gregg Herken: Unraveling history's mysteries"
UC Santa Cruz, April 2, 2012 In 1974, he received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in modern American diplomatic history from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

.James Leonard
"History Professor Gregg Herken Creates Intriguing Courses Based on Scholarly Research"
UC Merced, January 22, 2004 Herken held teaching positions at California State University, San Luis Obispo,

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio, United States. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational lib ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

, and

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

, and was a Fulbright-Hays senior research scholar at

Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

. During 1988–2003 he was a senior historian and curator of military space, as well as chairman of the Department of Space History at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

In 1994–95, he served on the U.S. government's

Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments The Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments was established in 1994 to investigate questions of the record of the United States government with respect to human radiation experiments. The special committee was created by President of the ...

. Since 2005, Herken has been a Senior Fellow at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in

Monterey, California Monterey ( ; ) is a city situated on the southern edge of Monterey Bay, on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California. Located in Monterey County, California, Monterey County, the city occupies a land area of and recorded a popu ...

Works

In 2003, Herken's book ''Brotherhood of the Bomb'', for which he received a

MacArthur Grant The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

to write, was a finalist for the

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The ''Los Angeles Times'' Book Prize currently has nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), his ...

in history. * * * * *

References

External links

Smithsonian Air and Space Wall of Honor page''Brotherhood of the Bomb''
review by Washington Post

review by the New York Times
''Brotherhood of the Bomb''
review by Physics Today 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American historians American male non-fiction writers University of California, Merced faculty Princeton University alumni University of California, Santa Cruz alumni American curators Smithsonian Institution people MacArthur Fellows Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people) Historians of nuclear weapons Year of birth missing (living people) Historians from California 20th-century American male writers {{US-historian-stub