Eugene Burdick

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Eugene Burdick (12 December 1918 - 26 July 1965), was an American Political Scientist and co-author of The Ugly American (1958), Fail-Safe (1962) and The 480 (1965).

He was born in Sheldon, Iowa. His family moved to Los Angeles, California when he was aged 4.

Burdick attended Stanford University and Oxford University where he earned a Ph.D. degree in psychology, and he worked at the department of Political Science at the University of California. In 1956 his critically acclaimed novel The Ninth Wave, a Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship winner, was published. He died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 46.

[edit] Publications

Burdick has written several books:

• 1956, The Ninth Wave
• 1958, The Ugly American with William Lederer).
• 1961, The Blue of Capricorn.
• 1962, Fail-Safe with Harvey Wheeler).
• Sarkhan: a novel (co-author, with William Lederer).
• 1965, The 480, with William Lederer).
• 1965, Nina's Book
• The Deceptive American, with William Lederer).

All three future history works have the same theme — accidental nuclear war — with the same plot.