Force of Nature is the first full-scale account of Pauling's remarkable life. It also tells the story of Pauling's wife of nearly sixty years, Ava Helen Miller, a woman as intelligent and as strong-willed as he, and an important influence on his politics. Pauling's story also included many luminaries from both science and politics, from G. N. Lewis and Erwin Schrodinger, to Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer, to J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, and the Hollywood ten.

Written with Pauling's cooperation - including hours of interviews and access that Pauling granted Thomas Hager to private papers, correspondence, and diaries - Force of Nature also draws on scores of other interviews and thousands of pages of previously unreleased FBI, Department of State, and other documents to tell the compelling story of one of the great and controversial minds of our time.