Description: Advance Praise for Hedy''s Folly : "...[M]ost people were reluctant to believe that the most beautiful woman in the word had an invetor''s brain; but one man who came to believe in her was George Antheil.... Richard Rhodes...is the perfect historian to describe the abilities of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil as scientists and inventors. In Hedy''s Foll y, Rhodes is also very good on culture-rich Vienna...[and] the Hollywood of the ''30s and ''40s ." - Larry McMurtry, Harper''s Magazine "Literary luminary Rhodes is not the first to write about movie star Hedy Lamarr's second life as an inventor, but his enlightening and exciting chronicle is unique in its illumination of why and how she conceived of an epoch-shaping technology now known as frequency hopping spread spectrum . As intelligent and independent as she was beautiful, Jewish Austrian Lamarr quit school to become an actor, then disastrously married a munitions manufacturer who got cozy with the Nazis. Lamarr coolly gathered weapons information, then fled the country for Hollywood. As she triumphed on the silver screen, she also worked diligently on a secret form of radio communication that she hoped would boost the U.S. war effort, but which ultimately became the basis for cell phones, Wi-Fi, GPS, and bar-code readers. Lamarr's technical partner was George Antheil, a brilliant and intrepid pianist and avant-garde composer whose adventures are so fascinating, he nearly steals the show. In symphonic control of a great wealth of fresh and stimulating material, and profoundly attuned to the complex ramifications of Lamarr's and Antheil's struggles and achievements (Lamarr finally received recognition as an electronic pioneer late in life), Rhodes incisively, wittily, and dramatically brings to light a singular convergence of two beyond-category artists who overtly and covertly changed the world ." - Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred) "The author of The Twilight of the Bomb (2010) returns with the surprising story of a pivotal invention produced during World War II by a pair of most unlikely inventors-an avant-garde composer and the world's most glamorous movie star....A faded blossom of a story, artfully restored to bright bloom ."- Kirkus Reviews " If the subtitle of this book- The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World -doesn't make you want to read, nothing we say is likely to change your mind . But we will add this much: Rhodes, who has written about everything from atomic power to sex to John James Audubon, is apparently incapable of writing a bad book and most of what he does is absolutely superior, including this tale that has Nazi weapons, Hollywood stars, 20th century classical music, and the earliest versions of digital wireless."- The Daily Beast Praise for Richard Rhodes: The Making of the Nuclear Age (four volumes) "Every age finds the writers it needs, and the nuclear age has found Richard Rhodes."-Jonathan Schell, The Nation "Rhodes deserves considerable praise for his four books. He writes with remarkable confidence and clarity about these terrible devices. He tells stories well. He loads his text with interesting facts. His technical command is impressive."-Nicholas Thompson, New York Times Book Review "No one writes better about nuclear history than Rhodes does, ably combining a scholar's attention to detail with a novelist's devotion to character and pacing . . . The ingenuity and progressive spirit he reveals inspire optimism."-George Perkovich, The Washington Post "This long, rich book [ The Making of the Atomic Bomb ]. . . is the comprehensive history of the bomb, and it is also a work of literature."-Tracy Kidder, John James Audubon: The Making of an American "Rhodes has managed to do for Audubon what Audubon did for birds. . . in this splendid biography Rhodes has produced nothing less than a portrait of the United States in its formative years."-Jonathan Rosen, New York Times Book Review "More than a mere biography: it is a comprehensive history of a man and his era. . . . Rhodes breathes life again into the world in which Audubon lived."- Avedis Hadjian, Los Angeles Times Book Review Masters of Death: The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust "Riveting history. . . Unrelenting."-Jack Fischel, The Weekly Standard "Through his fine and accessible account, Rhodes deepens our sense of the Holocaust's utter evil."-Walter Reich, New York Times Book Review "This is an important and enormously powerful book." -Elie Wiesel

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