Richard Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American author of fiction and verity, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb in 1986, and most recently, John James Audubon: the Making of an American in 2004. He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation among others. He is an affliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. July is the seventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ...   This article is about the year 4. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-04-13, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... The Ford Foundation is a US charitable foundation created to fund programs that promote democracy, reduce poverty and promote international understanding (see mission statement). ... The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation funds the Guggenheim Museums. ... The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution. ... Cover of Time Magazine (December 27, 1926) Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr. ... For other meanings of Stanford, see Stanford (disambiguation). ...

Biographical Information

Born Richard Lee Rhodes in Kansas City, Kansas. Rhodes was raised by his father, following his mother's suicide on July 25, 1938, along with his older brother, Stanley. At the age of 13, Stan saved both boys from a horrible family situation, for more information read A Hole in the World. The boys, aged 13.5 and almost 12, then went to reside at the Andrew Drumm Institute, a private home for boys founded in 1928 in Independence, Missouri. The Drumm Institute is still in operation today, but now accepts both boys and girls, for more information visit the Andrew Drumm Institute webpage. Richard and Stanley lived at Drumm for the remainder of their youth and both graduated high school. Rhodes was admitted to Yale and received the Victor Wilson Scholarship which awarded him full tuition, room, board and other expenses for four years. Rhodes graduated with honors in 1959. He went on to publish 20 books and numerous articles for national magazines. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, a National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Making of the Atomic Bomb, published in 1986. He currently resides in California with his wife, Dr. Ginger Rhodes. Kansas City is a city and county seat of Wyandotte County, Kansas; it is part of the Unified Government which also includes Bonner Springs and Edwardsville. ... 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... State nickname: The Show Me State Official languages English Capital Jefferson City Largest city Kansas City (largest metropolitan area is Saint Louis) Governor Matt Blunt (R) Senators Kit Bond (R) Jim Talent (R) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 21st 69,709 mi²; 180,693 km² 1. ... Yale can refer to: Yale University, one of the United States oldest and most famous universities. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-04-13, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... The National Book Awards is the most important literary prize in the United States, presented annually for the best books by living U.S. citizens published in the U.S. The awards have been presented since 1950 in at least one category, and is presently awarded in each of four... The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American association of approximately seven hundred book reviewers. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... State nickname: The Golden State Official languages English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Senators Dianne Feinstein (D) Barbara Boxer (D) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 3rd 410,000 km² 4. ...

Nuclear history

Rhodes found the most success with his 1986 book, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, a narrative of the history of the people and events during World War II from the discoveries leading to the science of nuclear fission in the 1930s, through the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among its many honors, the 900-page book won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (in 1988), a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and has sold many hundreds of thousands of copies in English alone, as well as having been translated into a dozen or so other languages. Praised by both historians and former Los Alamos weapon scientists alike, the book is considered a general authority on early nuclear weapons history, as well as the development of modern physics in general, during the first half of the twentieth century. Nobel Laureate Isidor Rabi, one of the prime participants in the dawn of the atomic age, said about the book, "An epic worth 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." 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. ... Sketch of induced nuclear fission, a neutron (n) strikes a uranium nucleus which splits into similar products (F. P.), and releases more neutrons to continue the process, and energy in the form of gamma and other radiation. ... Control panels and operators for calutrons at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ... Urakami Tenshudo (Catholic Church in Nagasaki) destroyed by the atomic bomb, the bell of the church having toppled off. ... The Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction has been awarded since 1962 for a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category. ... The National Book Awards is the most important literary prize in the United States, presented annually for the best books by living U.S. citizens published in the U.S. The awards have been presented since 1950 in at least one category, and is presently awarded in each of four... The National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) is an American association of approximately seven hundred book reviewers. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Los Alamos National Laboratory, aerial view from 1995. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the hypocenter. ... Isidor Isaac Rabi (July 29, 1898 - January 11, 1988) was an American physicist of Austro-Hungarian origin. ...

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 (also known as Report LA-1, original, unannotated version available online) was a set of lectures given to new arrivals at the secret Los Alamos laboratory during wartime in order 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. 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... Robert Serber (1909 - June 1, 1997) was a physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project. ...

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 (Klaus Fuchs, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, among others), the debates over whether the hydrogen bomb ought to be produced (see History of nuclear weapons), and the eventual creation of the bomb and its consequences for the arms race. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Espionage is the practice of obtaining secrets (spying) from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. ... Klaus Fuchs ID badge photo from Los Alamos. ... The Rosenbergs Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) were American Communists who captured and maintained world attention after being tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. ... A nuclear fireball lights up the night in a United States nuclear test. ...

Other prominent works

John James Audubon, published in 2004, is a biography of the french-born American artist, John James Audubon (1785-1851). Audubon is known for his watercolor illustrations of birds and wildlife, including The Birds of America, a multivolume work published through subscriptions in the mid 1800s, first in England and then in the United States. John James Audubon John James Audubon (April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a Franco-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. ...

Rhodes' 1997 book Deadly feasts deals with the life of Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, prions, and mad cow disease. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (born September 9, 1923, Yonkers, New York, U.S.A.) is an American physician and medical researcher, who was the corecipient (along with Baruch S. Blumberg) of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976. ... Prions — short for proteinaceous infectious particle — are infectious protein structures that replicate through conversion of other host proteins. ... Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or commonly mad cow disease) is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle, which infects by a mechanism that shocked biologists on its discovery in late 20th century and appears transmissible to humans. ...

Bibliography

• Richard Rhodes, The inland ground: an evocation of the American Middle West (New York: Atheneum, 1970).
• — The ungodly: a novel of the Donner party (New York: Charterhouse, 1973).
• — Holy secrets (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978).
• — Looking for America: A writer's odyssey (New York: Penguin Books, 1980).
• — Sons of Earth: a novel (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1981).
• — The making of the atomic bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).
• — A hole in the world: an American boyhood (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).
• Robert Serber, The Los Alamos primer: the first lectures on how to build an atomic bomb, edited with an introduction by Richard Rhodes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).
• — Making love: an erotic odyssey (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
• — Nuclear renewal: common sense about energy (New York: Whittle Books, 1993).
• — Dark sun: the making of the hydrogen bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).
• — How to write: advice and reflections (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1995).
• Rachel Fermi, Picturing the bomb: photographs from the secret world of the Manhattan Project, introduction by Richard Rhodes (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1995).
• — Trying to get some dignity: stories of triumph over childhood abuse (New York: W. Morrow, 1996).
• — Deadly feasts: tracking the secrets of a terrifying new plague (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
• —, ed., Visions of technology: a century of vital debate about machines, systems, and the human world (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999).
• — Why they kill: the discoveries of a maverick criminologist (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
• — Masters of death: the SS-Einsatzgruppen and the invention of the Holocaust (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).
• — John James Audubon: the making of an American (New York: Knopf, 2004).
• John James Audubon, The Audubon Reader, edited by Richard Rhodes (New York: Everyman's Library, set to be released April 2006).