A Short History Of Nuclear Folly

Author : Rudolph Herzog
Publisher : Melville House
ISBN 13 : 1612191746
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Short History of Nuclear Folly written by Rudolph Herzog and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2013-04-30 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, a blackly sardonic people’s history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the hushed-up and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with catastrophe Rudolph Herzog, the acclaimed author of Dead Funny, presents a devastating account of history’s most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From the rarely-discussed nightmare of “Broken Arrows” (40 nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War) to “Operation Plowshare” (a proposal to use nuclear bombs for large engineering projects, such as a the construction of a second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs), Herzog focuses in on long-forgotten nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster. In an unprecedented people’s history, Herzog digs deep into archives, interviews nuclear scientists, and collects dozens of rare photos. He explores the “accidental” drop of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train conductor’s home, the implanting of plutonium into patients’ hearts, and the invention of wild tactical nukes, including weapons designed to kill enemy astronauts. Told in a riveting narrative voice, Herzog—the son of filmmaker Werner Herzog—also draws on childhood memories of the final period of the Cold War in Germany, the country once seen as the nuclear battleground for NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, and discusses evidence that Nazi scientists knew how to make atomic weaponry . . . and chose not to.

Author : Serhii Plokhy
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393540820
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.26/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis written by Serhii Plokhy and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The definitive history.…With his masterly book, Mr. Plokhy has sounded a warning bell." — The Economist A harrowing account of the Cuban missile crisis and how the US and USSR came to the brink of nuclear apocalypse. Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today’s world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis. Serhii Plokhy’s Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons. More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets’ or the Americans’ part would lead to mutual destruction. Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.

Author : Lawrence S. Wittner
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804771243
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Confronting the Bomb written by Lawrence S. Wittner and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Confronting the Bomb tells the dramatic, inspiring story of how citizen activism helped curb the nuclear arms race and prevent nuclear war. This abbreviated version of Lawrence Wittner's award-winning trilogy, The Struggle Against the Bomb, shows how a worldwide, grassroots campaign—the largest social movement of modern times—challenged the nuclear priorities of the great powers and, ultimately, thwarted their nuclear ambitions. Based on massive research in the files of peace and disarmament organizations and in formerly top secret government records, extensive interviews with antinuclear activists and government officials, and memoirs and other published materials, Confronting the Bomb opens a unique window on one of the most important issues of the modern era: survival in the nuclear age. It covers the entire period of significant opposition to the bomb, from the final stages of the Second World War up to the present. Along the way, it provides fascinating glimpses of the interaction of key nuclear disarmament activists and policymakers, including Albert Einstein, Harry Truman, Albert Schweitzer, Norman Cousins, Nikita Khrushchev, Bertrand Russell, Andrei Sakharov, Linus Pauling, Dwight Eisenhower, Harold Macmillan, John F. Kennedy, Randy Forsberg, Mikhail Gorbachev, Helen Caldicott, E.P. Thompson, and Ronald Reagan. Overall, however, it is a story of popular mobilization and its effectiveness.

Author : Richard Rhodes
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0375713948
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Arsenals of Folly written by Richard Rhodes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2008-11-04 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a riveting account of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. In the Reagan-Gorbachev era, the United States and the Soviet Union came within minutes of nuclear war, until Gorbachev boldly launched a campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, setting the stage for the 1986 Reykjavik summit and the incredible events that followed. In this thrilling, authoritative narrative, Richard Rhodes draws on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants and a wealth of new documentation to unravel the compelling, shocking story behind this monumental time in human history—its beginnings, its nearly chilling consequences, and its effects on global politics today.

Author : Norman Polmar
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
ISBN 13 : 1620459612
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book DEFCON-2 written by Norman Polmar and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The closest we've ever come to the end of the world "DEFCON-2 is the best single volume on the Cuban Missile Crisis published and is an important contribution to the history of the Cold War. Beyond the military and political facts of the crisis, Polmar and Gresham sketch the personalities that created and coped with the crisis. They also show us how close we came to the edge without becoming sensationalistic."—Larry Bond, bestselling author of Dangerous Ground Spy-satellite and aerial-reconnaissance photos reveal that one of the United States's bitterest enemies may be acquiring weapons of mass destruction and the means to use them against the American homeland. Administration officials refuse to accept intelligence professionals' interpretation of these images and order an end to spy missions over the offending nation. More than a month later, after vicious infighting, the president orders the spy missions to resume. The new photos reveal an array of ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads and striking deep within U.S. territory. It appears that the missiles will be fully operational within one week. This is not a plot setup for a suspense novel; it is the true story of the most terrifying moment in the 45-year Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union: the Cuban Missile Crisis. DEFCON-2 tells this tale as it has never been told before—from both sides, with the help of hundreds of recently declassified U.S. and Soviet documents, as well as interviews with numerous former spies, military figures, and government officials who speak out here for the first time.

Author : Howard Brinkley
Publisher : BookCaps Study Guides
ISBN 13 : 1621074536
Total Pages : 52 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book 13 Days in October written by Howard Brinkley and published by BookCaps Study Guides. This book was released on 2012-12-09 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never has the world come as close to the catastrophic destruction that nearly came to pass in October 1962. The United States and the Soviet Union, uneasy allies in World War II but Cold War rivals after the defeat of Germany, squared off over the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. This launched 13 days of tense negotiations between the two nations, as both President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev prepared for the possibility of nuclear war. While neither man wanted a war and understood the potential consequences, the situation was not merely in their hands. Khrushchev faced pressure from Soviets to take a hardline stance against the U.S., while Kennedy faced the real possibility of a military coup if he did not follow the strong recommendations of his military advisors to destroy the missiles. As Attorney General Robert Kennedy said, "The 10 or 12 people who participated in all these discussions were bright and energetic people. We had perhaps amongst the most able in the country and if any one of a half a dozen of them were president, the world would have been very likely plunged into catastrophic war." Read more about the history of this short crisis in this book. HistoryCaps is an imprint of BookCaps Study Guides. With each book, a brief period of history is recapped. We publish a wide array of topics (from baseball and music to science and philosophy), so check our growing catalogue regularly to see our newest books.

Author : David Coleman
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393084418
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Fourteenth Day: JFK and the Aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Secret White House Tapes written by David Coleman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-10-08 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes what was going on in the Oval Office as the highly-charged events leading up the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded, as well as the immediate aftermath, based on secret recordings made by President Kennedy.

Author : David Stumpf
Publisher : University of Arkansas Press
ISBN 13 : 1682261549
Total Pages : 595 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Minuteman written by David Stumpf and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2021-02-26 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Minuteman: A Technical History of the Missile That Defined American Nuclear Warfare, David K. Stumpf demystifies the intercontinental ballistic missile program that was conceived at the end of the Eisenhower administration as a key component of the US nuclear strategy of massive retaliation. Although its nuclear warhead may have lacked power relative to that of the Titan II, the Minuteman more than made up for this in terms of numbers and readiness to launch—making it the ultimate ICBM. Minuteman offers a fascinating look at the technological breakthroughs necessary to field this weapon system that has served as a powerful component of the strategic nuclear triad for more than half a century. With exacting detail, Stumpf examines the construction of launch and launch control facilities; innovations in solid propellant, lightweight inertial guidance systems, and lightweight reentry vehicle development; and key flight tests and operational flight programs—all while situating the Minuteman program in the context of world events. In doing so, the author reveals how the historic missile has adapted to changing defense strategies—from counterforce to mutually assured destruction to sufficiency.

Author : Tim Weiner
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
ISBN 13 : 1627790861
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Folly and the Glory written by Tim Weiner and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Tim Weiner, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, an urgent and gripping account of the 75-year battle between the US and Russia that led to the election and impeachment of an American president With vivid storytelling and riveting insider accounts, Weiner traces the roots of political warfare—the conflict America and Russia have waged with espionage, sabotage, diplomacy and disinformation—from 1945 until 2020. America won the cold war, but Russia is winning today. Vladimir Putin helped to put his chosen candidate in the White House with a covert campaign that continues to this moment. Putin’s Russia has revived Soviet-era intelligence operations gaining ever more potent information from—and influence over—the American people and government. Yet the US has put little power into its defense. This has put American democracy in peril. Weiner takes us behind closed doors, illuminating Russian and American intelligence operations and their consequences. To get to the heart of what is at stake and find potential solutions, he examines long-running 20th-century CIA operations, the global political machinations of the Soviet KGB, the erosion of American political warfare after the cold war, and how 21st-century Russia has kept the cold war alive. The Folly and the Glory is an urgent call to our leaders and citizens to understand the nature of political warfare—and to change course before it’s too late.

Author : Richard Rhodes
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307742954
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Hedy's Folly written by Richard Rhodes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a remarkable story of science history: how a ravishing film star and an avant-garde composer invented spread-spectrum radio, the technology that made wireless phones, GPS systems, and many other devices possible. Beginning at a Hollywood dinner table, Hedy's Folly tells a wild story of innovation that culminates in U.S. patent number 2,292,387 for a "secret communication system." Along the way Rhodes weaves together Hollywood’s golden era, the history of Vienna, 1920s Paris, weapons design, music, a tutorial on patent law and a brief treatise on transmission technology. Narrated with the rigor and charisma we've come to expect of Rhodes, it is a remarkable narrative adventure about spread-spectrum radio's genesis and unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world.