Richard Lee Rhodes is an American historian, journalist, and author of both fiction and nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986). Born in Kansas City, Kansas, he graduated with honors from Yale in 1959. Rhodes has worked for Hallmark Cards and was a contributing editor for Harper’s and Playboy magazines. He has authored more than fifty articles and ten books, including Looking for America: A Writer’s Odyssey (1979), Making Love: An Erotic Odyssey (1993), and The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987), which won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

His other notable works include Deadly Feasts: Tracking the Secrets of a Terrifying New Plague (1997) and Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (2002). Rhodes is known for his ability to delve into complex subjects and articulate them clearly.

He has been awarded grants from prestigious organizations such as the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Rhodes is an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and frequently gives lectures on a variety of topics, including nuclear energy, to audiences worldwide.