Skip to main content

Richard B. Frank

Richard B. Frank is a graduate of the University of Missouri (1969) and Georgetown University Law Center (1976). He served in the Vietnam War with the 101st Airborne Divisions as an aero rifle platoon leader. He is an independent scholar specializing in the Asia-Pacific War.

In 1990, he published his first book Guadalcanal. It won the General Wallace M. Greene, Jr. Award for the best book about Marine Corps history that year. His second work, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, appeared in 1999. It won the Harry S. Truman Book Award and has been called one of the six best books in English about World War II by Dr. Gerhard Weinberg. Both Random House books became main selections of the History Book Club. In 2007, he completed MacArthur as part of the Palgrave Great Generals series. 

Featured Articles

Often thought to have been a weak President, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or political fallout.

Rarely has the full story been told how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.