Showing results for "Richard Reeves" in Biographies & Memoirs

The Making of Martin Luther takes a provocative look at the intellectual emergence of one of the most original and influential minds of the 16th century. Richard Rex traces how, in a concentrated burst of creative energy in the few years surrounding his excommunication by Pope Leo X in 1521, this lecturer at an obscure German university developed a startling new interpretation of the Christian faith that brought to an end the dominance of the Catholic Church in Europe.

Ernest Rutherford, who grew up in colonial New Zealand and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, made numerous revolutionary discoveries, among them the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the “half-life” of radioactive materials, which led to a massive re-evaluation of the age of the Earth―previously judged just 100 million years old. Above all, perhaps, Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom, unlocking tremendous forces―forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, that would bring us the atomic bomb.

Syndicated columnist and biographer Richard Reeves and Pakistani novelist and New Yorker writer Moshin Hamid on this edition of Fresh Air. Richard Reeves' most recent book is President Nixon: Alone in the White House. He's also written books about Presidents Reagan, Kennedy, Clinton, and Ford. Reeves lived in Pakistan during the 1980s.