About the Author

Richard Rhodes is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1995), and, most recently, John James Audubon: The Making of an American Mind(2006).

Reviews

*****Praise for the Hardcover Edition***** "Certainly [Rhodes] has created an atmosphere as stark and gloomy as an old graveyard in an abandoned town. And certainly he has made a replica of the American past that often sets us to pondering the American present. But somehow none of these points quite does justice to this strange, accomplished book. So let me just admit that it is a grim, unpleasant story - a 'hard hard case,' as the narrator sighs while describing the ghoulish sights that greeted the relief parties. But unpleasant as it is, it is also beautiful. And one keeps reading it." - New York Times