The story of the postwar superpower arms race, climaxing during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade. Drawing on a wealth of new documentation, Rhodes reveals how the Reagan administration's unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s led Soviet leader Andropov to conclude that Reagan must be preparing for a nuclear war. In 1983, when NATO staged a larger than usual series of field exercises, the Soviet military came very close to launching a defensive first...

"Despite not having been used in anger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear weapons are still the biggest threat that faces us in the 21st century. Indeed, for all the effort to reduce nuclear stockpiles to zero and to keep other nations (such as Iran) from developing nuclear capability, it seems that the Bomb is here to stay. In this gripping Very Short Introduction, Joseph M. Siracusa, an internationally respected authority on nuclear arms, provides...

"A riveting narrative of the Atomic Age--from x-rays and Marie Curie to the Nevada Test Site and the 2011 meltdown in Japan--written by the prizewinning and bestselling author of Rocket Men. Radiation is a complex and paradoxical concept: staggering amounts of energy flow from seemingly inert rock and that energy is both useful and dangerous. While nuclear energy affects our everyday lives--from nuclear medicine and food irradiation to microwave technology--its...

Nuclear war would be an apocalypse. Nuclear deterrence is effective in a crisis. Nuclear weapons shock and awe opponents. Killing civilians causes leaders to back down. The bomb has kept the peace for sixty-five years. These are the things we think we know about nuclear weapons, but it turns out they are myths, myths that nonetheless still shape our nuclear policy. In Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, Ward Wilson blows the lid off the stale debate...

An alarming, deeply reported analysis of how close--and how often--the world has come to nuclear annihilation, and why we are once again on the brink

"Today, there are 440 nuclear reactors operating throughout the world, with nuclear power providing ten percent of global electricity. Yet as the world seeks to reduce carbon emissions to combat climate change, the question arises: Just how safe is nuclear energy? In Atoms and Ashes, Serhii Plokhy recounts six incidents that have dogged the nuclear industry in its military and civil incarnations: Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island,...

An unflinching tale that reveals the intentional disregard for human and animal life through nuclear testing by the federal government and uranium extraction by mining corporations during and after the Cold War. Sarah Alisabeth Fox highlights the personal cost of nuclear testing and uranium extraction in the American West through extensive interviews with "downwinders," the Native American and non-Native residents of the Great Basin region affected...

Explores ways to live and survive in a nuclear age and examines the key areas of public morality, weapons technology, and international policy.