Richard Lee Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American historian, journalist, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, including the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
-winning '' The Making of the Atomic Bomb'' (1986), and most recently, ''Energy: A Human History'' (2018).
Rhodes has been awarded grants from the
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 117 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.6 billion and ...
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentri ...
at
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. He also frequently gives lectures and talks on a broad range of subjects, including testimony to the U.S. Senate on nuclear energy.
Biography
Richard Rhodes was born in
Kansas City, Kansas
Kansas City (commonly known as KCK) is the third-most populous city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As ...
, in 1937. Following his mother's suicide on July 25, 1938, Rhodes and his older brother Stanley were raised in the
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...
, area by his father, a railroad
boilermaker
A boilermaker is a Tradesman, tradesperson who Metal fabrication, fabricates steels, iron, or copper into boilers and other large containers intended to hold hot gas or liquid, as well as maintains and repairs boilers and boiler systems.Bure ...
with a third-grade education. When Rhodes was ten, their father remarried. The new wife starved, exploited, and abused the children. One day Stanley walked into a police station and reported their living conditions.
The brothers were removed from their father's custody and sent to the Andrew Drumm Institute, an institution for boys founded in 1928 in
Independence, Missouri
Independence is a city in and one of two county seats of Jackson County, Missouri, United States. It is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020 Unite ...
. The admission of the brothers was something of an anomaly as the institution was designed for orphaned or
indigent
Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse
boys and they fit neither category. The Drumm Institute is still in operation today, and now accepts both boys and girls. Rhodes became a member of the board of trustees in 1991. Rhodes wrote about his childhood in ''A Hole in the World''.
Richard and Stanley lived at Drumm for the remainder of their adolescence. Both graduated from high school. Rhodes was admitted to
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 ...
with a full scholarship and graduated with honors in 1959, a member of Manuscript Society.
Rhodes has published 23 books as well as numerous articles for national magazines, and wrote a play that is based on the historic 1986 meeting between
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
and
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
"General Nonfiction" ''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved March 25, 2012. and numerous other awards. Many of his personal documents and research materials are part of the Kansas Collection at the Spencer Research Library,
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...
.
Rhodes is the father of two children and is a grandfather. He and his second wife, Ginger Rhodes, have made their home in California.
Nuclear history
Rhodes came to national prominence with his 1986 book, '' The Making of the Atomic Bomb'', a narrative of the history of the people and events during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
from the discoveries leading to the science of
nuclear fission
Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...
in the 1930s, through the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada.
From 1942 to 1946, the ...
and the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civili ...
. Among its many honors, the 900-page book won the
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published du ...
National Book Foundation
The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...
. Retrieved March 25, 2012. and a
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Los Alamos weapon engineers and scientists alike, the book is considered a general authority on early
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
s history, as well as the development of modern
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
in general, during the first half of the 20th century. According to a citation on the first page of the book, Nobel Laureate Isidor Rabi, one of the prime participants in the dawn of the atomic age, said about the book, "An epic worthy of Milton. Nowhere else have I seen the whole story put down with such elegance and gusto and in such revealing detail and simple language which carries the reader through wonderful and profound scientific discoveries and their application." In 2012 the book was reissued as a 25th anniversary edition with a new foreword by Rhodes.
In 1992, Rhodes followed it up by compiling, editing, and writing the introduction to an annotated version of '' The Los Alamos Primer'', by Manhattan Project scientist Robert Serber. The ''Primer'' was a set of lectures given to new arrivals at the secret
Los Alamos Laboratory
The Los Alamos Laboratory, also known as Project Y, was a secret scientific laboratory established by the Manhattan Project and overseen by the University of California during World War II. It was operated in partnership with the United State ...
during wartime to get them up to speed about the prominent questions needing to be solved in bomb design, and had been largely declassified in 1965, but was not widely available.
In 1993, Rhodes published ''Nuclear Renewal: Common Sense about Energy'' detailing the history of the nuclear power industry in the United States, and future promises of
nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...
.
Rhodes published a sequel to ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb'' in 1995, ''Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb'', which told the story of the atomic espionage during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
(
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly a ...
,
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (born Greenglass; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were an American married couple who were convicted of First Chief Directorate, spying for the Soviet Union, including ...
, among others), the debates over whether the
hydrogen bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...
ought to be produced (see
History of nuclear weapons
Building on major scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the United Kingdom began the world's first nuclear weapons research project, codenamed Tube Alloys, in 1941, during World War II. The United States, in collaboration with the Uni ...
), and the eventual creation of the bomb and its consequences for the arms race.
In 1997 Rhodes appeared in the UK
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
TV series ''Equinox'' episode "A Very British Bomb" about the UK's efforts after the war to develop its own nuclear weapons after collaboration with the US had been halted by the 1946 MacMahon Act.
In 2007, Rhodes published ''Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race'', a chronicle of the arms buildups during 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 ...
, especially focusing on
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
and the
Reagan administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...
.
''The Twilight of the Bombs'', the fourth and final volume in his series on nuclear history, was published in 2010. The book documents, among other topics, the post-Cold War nuclear history of the world,
nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries, particularly those not recognized as List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear-weapon states by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonl ...
, and
nuclear terrorism
Nuclear terrorism is the use of a nuclear weapon or radiological weapon as an act of terrorism. There are many possible terror incidents, ranging in feasibility and scope. These include the sabotage of a nuclear facility, the intentional irrad ...
.
Other prominent works
Rhodes's 1997 book ''Deadly Feasts'' is a work of verity concerning
transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), also known as prion diseases, are a group of progressive, incurable, and fatal conditions that are associated with the prion hypothesis and affect the brain and nervous system of many animals, in ...
(TSE),
prion
A prion () is a Proteinopathy, misfolded protein that induces misfolding in normal variants of the same protein, leading to cellular death. Prions are responsible for prion diseases, known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSEs), w ...
epidemics
An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of Host (biology), hosts in a given population within a short period of time. For example ...
, beginning with the infection of large numbers of the
Fore people
The Fore () people live in the Okapa District of the Eastern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. There are approximately 20,000 Fore who are separated by the Wanevinti Mountains into the North Fore and South Fore regions. Their main form of ...
of the
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
Eastern Highlands during a period when they consumed their dead in mortuary feasts, and explores the link between new variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (nvCJD) in humans and the consumption of beef contaminated with
bovine spongiform encephalopathy
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and always fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss. Later in the course of th ...
, commonly referred to as mad cow disease.
''John James Audubon'', published in 2004, is a biography of the French-born American artist,
John James Audubon
John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American Autodidacticism, self-trained artist, natural history, naturalist, and ornithology, ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornitho ...
(1785–1851). Audubon is known for his life-sized
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...
illustrations of birds and wildlife, including '' The Birds of America'', a multi-volume work published through subscriptions in the mid-19th century, first in England and then in the United States. Rhodes also edited a collection of Audubon's letters and writings—''The Audubon Reader'', published by
Everyman's Library
Everyman's Library is a series of reprints of classic literature, primarily from the Western canon. It began in 1906. It is currently published in hardback by Random House. It was originally an imprint of J. M. Dent (itself later a division ...
(
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Blanche Knopf and Alfred A. Knopf Sr. in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers ...
, 2006).
''Hedy's Folly'' was published in November 2011 and deals with the life and work of the Hollywood actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr.
Rhodes’s book ''Hell and Good Company'', published in 2015, is about the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
and the changes that came from it.
''
Science-Based Medicine
''Science-Based Medicine'' is a website and blog with articles covering issues in science and medicine, especially medical scams and practices. Founded in 2008, it is owned and operated by the New England Skeptical Society, and run by Steve ...
'' writer
Steven Novella
Steven Paul Novella (born July 29, 1964) is an American neurology, clinical neurologist and Professors in the United States#Associate Professor, associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement ...
says that Rhodes's book from 2018 ''Energy: A Human History'' reviews the history of our use of energy from around 1500 to the present. Novella writes, "it is well-researched and contains a wealth of historical information... A few themes stuck out for me in the book. One was how similar the social, political, and market forces are today and in the past when it comes to energy" and "the book is timely because the history of our energy decisions in the past is great background for our energy decisions today from his 2018 review."
Though less well known as a writer of fiction, Rhodes is also the author of four novels. Three of the four went out of print, but ''The Ungodly: A Novel of the
Donner Party
The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California interim government, 1846-1850, California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of mishaps, they spent ...
,'' his first, was reissued in a new edition in 2007 by
Stanford University Press
Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It is currently a member of the Ass ...
Joseph Cirincione
Joseph Cirincione (, (born November 13, 1949) is a national security analyst and author. He served as the president of the Ploughshares Fund, a public grant-making foundation focused on nuclear nonproliferation and conflict resolution. He has o ...