Download or read book Armageddon and Paranoia written by Rodric Braithwaite and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-09 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Former British Ambassador to the Soviet Union and author of the definitive account of the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Sir Rodric Braithwaite offers here a tour d'horizon of nuclear policy from the end of World War II and start of the Cold War to the present day. Armageddon and Paranoia unfolds the full history of nuclear weapons that began with the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and now extends worldwide. For decades, an apocalypse seemed imminent, staved off only by the certainty that if one side launched these missiles the other would launch an equally catastrophic counterstrike. This method of avoiding all-out nuclear warfare was called "Deterrence," a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Still, though neither side actively wanted to plunge the world into nuclear wasteland, the possibility of war by misjudgment or mistake meant fears could never be entirely assuaged. Both an exploration of Deterrence and the long history of superpower nuclear policy, Armageddon and Paranoia comes at a time when tensions surrounding nuclear armament have begun mounting once more. No book until this one has offered so comprehensive a history of the topic that has guided--at times dominated--the world in which we live.

Download or read book Armageddon and Paranoia written by Rodric Braithwaite and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September 1961, President John F. Kennedy told his audience that "every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads." In this sweeping, immersive, and now chillingly relevant history of nuclear confrontation, eminent historian and diplomat Rodric Braithwaite offers the tale of that slender thread, a tale that spans from the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 into the present. Here is an account of treaties and summits, of life-and-death strategy among nations, featuring a vast and varied cast of individuals--scientists, spies, diplomats, generals, politicians, shamans, writers, geniuses, the hight-minded and the crackpot--all ow whom played their part in shaping the Nuclear Age. As [this book] shows, containing atomic weapons has been a central preoccupation of global politics and policy for the last seven decades. In the years after World War II, atomic weapons were initially controlled only by the superpowers, first the United States, followed shortly by the former Soviet Union (mainly by having infiltrated the Manhattan Project), then developed in succession by England, France, China, India, and Pakistan. In recent years, North Korea has developed a nuclear weapons program and is now developing the means of delivering them. Nuclear proliferation has long dominated and even obsessed international diplomacy and policy, particularly as the capacity to unleash catastrophic destruction became widespread. Braithwaite offers an overview of policy from the Cold war reliance on what was termed "Deterrence," a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), to the "Armageddon theology" of Ronald Reagan, to the de-alerting of nuclear weapons promised by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, to the fire and fury driving the current war of tweeted insults. For nearly three-quarters of a century, nuclear weapons have shadowed human existence, moving from crisis to quiescence and back to crisis. Armageddon and Paranoia comes at a time when tensions are mounting once more. Though we cannot un-invent the atomic bomb, Braithwaite's clear-sighted and illuminating history provides a deeper understanding of how it has shaped the world in which we live. -- Dust jacket.

Download or read book A is for Armageddon written by Richard Horne and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Is for Armageddon is a stunningly illustrated, eye-openingly informative, and wickedly entertaining catalog of disasters that may possibly culminate in the end of the world as we know it. Richard Horne—author of 101 Things to Do Before You Die and illustrator of the blockbuster New York Times bestseller The Dangerous Book for Boys, as well as the covers for J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter School Books for Comic Relief,Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Quidditch Through the Ages—combines science, religion, and sociology with good old fashioned paranoia to explore humankind’s dire future. From the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to super volcanoes, A Is for Armageddon is a delectable compendium of doom—and in plenty of time for 2012!

Download or read book Sleepwalking to Armageddon written by Helen Caldicott and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A frightening but necessary assessment of the threat posed by nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century, edited by the world's leading antinuclear activist With the world's attention focused on climate change and terrorism, we are in danger of taking our eyes off the nuclear threat. But rising tensions between Russia and NATO, proxy wars erupting in Syria and Ukraine, a nuclear-armed Pakistan, and stockpiles of aging weapons unsecured around the globe make a nuclear attack or a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility arguably the biggest threat facing humanity. In Sleepwalking to Armageddon, pioneering antinuclear activist Helen Caldicott assembles the world's leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today. Chapters address the size and distribution of the current global nuclear arsenal, the history and politics of nuclear weapons, the culture of modern-day weapons labs, the militarization of space, and the dangers of combining artificial intelligence with nuclear weaponry, as well as a status report on enriched uranium and a shocking analysis of spending on nuclear weapons over the years. The book ends with a devastating description of what a nuclear attack on Manhattan would look like, followed by an overview of contemporary antinuclear activism. Both essential and terrifying, this book is sure to become the new bible of the antinuclear movement—to wake us from our complacency and urge us to action.

Download or read book 1983 written by Taylor Downing and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book American Armageddon written by Eric Ward and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Off Armageddon Reef written by David Weber and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-01-02 with total page 804 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity pushed its way to the stars - and encountered the Gbaba, a ruthless alien race that nearly wiped us out. Earth and her colonies are now smoldering ruins, and the few survivors have fled to distant, Earth-like Safehold, to try to rebuild. But the Gbaba can detect the emissions of an industrial civilization, so the human rulers of Safehold have taken extraordinary measures: with mind control and hidden high technology, they've built a religion in which every Safeholdian believes, a religion designed to keep Safehold society medieval forever. 800 years pass. In a hidden chamber on Safehold, an android from the far human past awakens. This "rebirth" was set in motion centuries before, by a faction that opposed shackling humanity with a concocted religion. Via automated recordings, "Nimue" - or, rather, the android with the memories of Lieutenant Commander Nimue Alban - is told her fate: she will emerge into Safeholdian society, suitably disguised, and begin the process of provoking the technological progress which the Church of God Awaiting has worked for centuries to prevent. Nothing about this will be easy. To better deal with a medieval society, "Nimue" takes a new gender and a new name, "Merlin." His formidable powers and access to caches of hidden high technology will need to be carefully concealed. And he'll need to find a base of operations, a Safeholdian country that's just a little more freewheeling, a little less orthodox, a little more open to the new. And thus Merlin comes to Charis, a mid-sized kingdom with a talent for naval warfare. He plans to make the acquaintance of King Haarahld and Crown Prince Cayleb, and maybe, just maybe, kick off a new era of invention. Which is bound to draw the attention of the Church...and, inevitably, lead to war. It's going to be a long, long process. And David Weber's epic Off Armageddon Reef is can't-miss sci-fi. Safehold Series 1. Off Armageddon Reef 2. By Schism Rent Asunder 3. By Heresies Distressed 4. A Mighty Fortress 5. How Firm A Foundation 6. Midst Toil and Tribulation 7. Like A Mighty Army 8. Hell's Foundations Quiver 9. At the Sign of Triumph At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book The Darkening Age written by Catherine Nixey and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Jerwood Award from the Royal Society of Literature, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a Book of the Year by the Telegraph, Spectator, Observer, and BBC History Magazine, this bold new history of the rise of Christianity shows how its radical followers helped to annihilate Greek and Roman civilizations. The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked and suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to "one true faith." Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyrs' deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless, and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth, and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the first century to the sixth, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial, and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces, and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written, and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.

Download or read book Return of a King written by William Dalrymple and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From William Dalrymple—award-winning historian, journalist and travel writer—a masterly retelling of what was perhaps the West’s greatest imperial disaster in the East, and an important parable of neocolonial ambition, folly and hubris that has striking relevance to our own time. With access to newly discovered primary sources from archives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and India—including a series of previously untranslated Afghan epic poems and biographies—the author gives us the most immediate and comprehensive account yet of the spectacular first battle for Afghanistan: the British invasion of the remote kingdom in 1839. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed helmets, and facing little resistance, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the mountain passes from India into Afghanistan in order to reestablish Shah Shuja ul-Mulk on the throne, and as their puppet. But after little more than two years, the Afghans rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into rebellion. This First Anglo-Afghan War ended with an entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world ambushed and destroyed in snowbound mountain passes by simply equipped Afghan tribesmen. Only one British man made it through. But Dalrymple takes us beyond the bare outline of this infamous battle, and with penetrating, balanced insight illuminates the uncanny similarities between the West’s first disastrous entanglement with Afghanistan and the situation today. He delineates the straightforward facts: Shah Shuja and President Hamid Karzai share the same tribal heritage; the Shah’s principal opponents were the Ghilzai tribe, who today make up the bulk of the Taliban’s foot soldiers; the same cities garrisoned by the British are today garrisoned by foreign troops, attacked from the same rings of hills and high passes from which the British faced attack. Dalryrmple also makes clear the byzantine complexity of Afghanistan’s age-old tribal rivalries, the stranglehold they have on the politics of the nation and the ways in which they ensnared both the British in the nineteenth century and NATO forces in the twenty-first. Informed by the author’s decades-long firsthand knowledge of Afghanistan, and superbly shaped by his hallmark gifts as a narrative historian and his singular eye for the evocation of place and culture, The Return of a King is both the definitive analysis of the First Anglo-Afghan War and a work of stunning topicality.

Download or read book Afgantsy written by Rodric Braithwaite and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-11 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is well known: the expansionist Communists overwhelmed a poor country as a means of reaching a warm-water port on the Persian Gulf. Afghan mujahideen upset their plans, holding on with little more than natural fighting skills, until CIA agents came to the rescue with American arms. Humiliated in battle, the Soviets hastily retreated. It is a great story-but it never happened. In this brilliant, myth-busting account, Rodric Braithwaite, the former British ambassador to Moscow, challenges much of what we know about the Soviets in Afghanistan. He provides an inside look at this little-understood episode, using first-hand accounts and piercing analysis to show the war as it was fought and experienced by the Russians. The invasion was a defensive response to a chaotic situation in the Soviets' immediate neighbor. They intended to establish a stable, friendly government, secure the major towns, and train the police and armed forces before making a rapid exit. But the mission escalated, as did casualties. Braithwaite does not paint the occupation as a Russian triumph. To the contrary, he illustrates the searing effect of the brutal conflict on soldiers, their families, and the broader public, as returning veterans struggled to regain their footing back home. Now available in paperback, Braithwaite carries readers through these complex and momentous events, capturing those violent and tragic days as no one has done before.

Download or read book The Paranoid Apocalypse written by Richard Landes and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text re-examines 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion's' popularity, investigating why it has persisted, as well as larger questions about the success of conspiracy theories even in the face of claims that they are blatantly counterfactual and irrational.

Download or read book Moscow 1941 written by Rodric Braithwaite and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 2006 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample Text

Download or read book This Book Is Full of Spiders written by David Wong and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fan favorite Wong takes readers to a whole new level with this blistering sequel to the cult sensation "John Dies at the End," soon to be a movie starring Paul Giamatti.

Download or read book Dr Bloodmoney written by Philip K Dick and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seven years after the day of the bombs, Point Reyes was luckier than most places. Its people were reasonably normal - except for the girl with her twin brother growing inside her, and talking to her. Their barter economy was working. Their resident genius could fix almost anything that broke down. But they didn't know they were harbouring the one man who almost everyone left alive wanted killed...

Download or read book James B Conant Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age written by James Hershberg and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the titans of mid-20th-century American history, attaining prominence and power in multiple fields. Usually remembered as an educational leader, he was president of Harvard University for two tumultuous decades, from the Depression to World War II to the Cold War and McCarthyism. To take that job he gave up a scientific career as one of the country’s top chemists, and he left it twenty years later to become Eisenhower’s top diplomat in postwar Germany. Hershberg’s prize-winning study, however, examines a critical aspect of Conant’s life that was long obscured by government secrecy: his pivotal role in the birth of the nuclear age. During World War II, as an advisor to Roosevelt and then Truman (on the elite “Interim Committee” that considered how to employ the bomb against Japan), Conant was intimately involved in the decisions to build and use the atomic bomb. During and after the Manhattan Project, he also led efforts to prevent a postwar nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union that, he feared, threatened the survival of civilization — an apocalyptic prospect he glimpsed in the first instant of the new age, when he witnessed the first test of the new weapon at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945. “... a vivid inquiry... a model of historiography; evocative reading...[Conant was] central to atomic policy and progress; the bomb would be as much Conant’s as it was anyone’s in Government. His inner response to that burden responsibility has long been obscured, but it is illumined here.” — Philip Morrison, The New York Times Book Review “In his splendid portrait of Conant, James Hershberg has illuminated the life of a pivotal figure in the making of U.S. nuclear, scientific, educational and foreign policy for almost a half-century. But the book is much more: It is not only an insightful narration of Conant’s life; it is also a brilliant and important account of the making of the nuclear age, a chronicle that contains much that is new... Hershberg’s superb study... is a chronicle of Conant’s moral journey and we are the wiser for his having charted Conant’s path.” — S.S. Schweber, Washington Post Book World “James G. Hershberg ably comes to grips with Conant and his hazardous times... His book is vibrantly written and compelling, and it breaches Conant’s shield of public discretion in masterly fashion, making extensive use of unpublished interviews, diaries, reports, and correspondence pried from private and governmental repositories. It is a huge, ambitious work — a history of the Cold War as Conant encountered it as well as a study of the man.” — Daniel J. Kevles, The New Yorker “... a well-written, comprehensive, nonjudgmental but sensitive biography... Conant was involved in so many and such critical events that students of almost any aspect of our public life over the past half-century will find useful the new material and helpful insights in this book... This fine biography of one of the most important and complicated of America’s twentieth-century leaders immediately establishes James Hershberg as one of America’s outstanding young historians.” — Stephen E. Ambrose,Foreign Affairs “... magnificent... Any reader interested in nuclear weapons, Cold War history or American politics from FDR to JFK will find this biography riveting.” — Priscilla McMillan, Chicago Tribune “... masterful... The prose is clear, the narrative forceful and the author’s judgments are balanced and judicious. This is simply splendid biography... The highest praise one can give for a book of this sort is that the historian has not shrunk from speaking truth to power. This book quietly but insistently does so. It should be read by the public at large as one of the definitive texts on the cold war and the nuclear age... Hershberg’s triumph is that he has prevailed over all the official lies to give us one more layer of the historical truth.” — Kai Bird, The Nation “... riveting... an impressive achievement... honest and comprehensive in its scholarship, the author has shown himself to be a historian of notable achievement and promise.” — McGeorge Bundy, Nature “Hershberg’s outstanding, balanced biography lifts the self-imposed secrecy surrounding a key architect of U.S. Cold War policy and of the nuclear age.” —Publisher’s Weekly “... [an] impressive and substantial achievement. [Hershberg] has used the life of one strategically placed individual to illuminate the most important issues surrounding America’s role and conduct in the nuclear age. His book will be invaluable to scholars assessing the impact and legacy of the group who acquired the epithet ‘wise men’ now that the Cold War has receded.” — Carol S. Gruber, Science “... definitive... a far more textured picture than one finds in Conant’s own guarded and unrevealing autobiography... an important and rewarding book... illuminating... Conant led a remarkable and eventful life in remarkable and eventful times. James Hershberg has explored that life, and those times, in exhaustive and revealing detail.” — Paul Boyer, The New Republic “James G. Hershberg has achieved the impossible. He has written a huge biography of a Harvard president that is fascinating, informative and as valuable a piece of American history as anything I have read in years... Mr. Hershberg has brought us back vividly to an age that seems remote, so long ago, but the questions about nuclear proliferation are the same, even while the answers are still ambiguous. As we watch men struggling with unanticipated post-Cold War problems and civil wars sprouting like Jason’s men at arms, it is good to read this story about a complex man who deserves an important place in our history because he helped make that history possible.” — Arnold Beichman, The Washington Times “... engrossing... A magisterial study of an awesome and intriguing public career.” —Kirkus Reviews “... entertaining... thought-provocative.” — Dick Teresi, The Wall Street Journal “Hershberg’s book helps us more clearly understand the postwar Establishment and offers a challenging appraisal of the role of elites, of universities and of the state.” — Gar Alperovitz, In These Times “Hershberg deserves great credit for cracking a tough New England walnut, analyzing this very important public figure, demonstrating how he fit into his own time and showing us what we can learn from the man.” — Daniel R. Mortensen, The Friday Review of Defense Literature “... a compelling account... an engaging examination of one of the central figures of the nuclear age. It succeeds in showing ‘one man’s intersection with great events and issues’ and in the process illuminates those issues for us all.” — American Historical Review “... well-written... Conant’s participation in one of our country’s most dynamic periods is, thanks to Hershberg, now much better understood.” — Library Journal “A reader of the book will enter the realm of the greats, the shapers of worlds created by the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki... Conant was no bit player in Cold War history... [the book is] very successful in weaving Conant’s subsurface persona in with his ups and downs as a prominent and committed public figure. And it leaves out little detail in describing top-level decisions involving the Cold War geopolitics of nuclear weaponry. Conant was a participant in most of these decisions—with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman themselves, their Secretaries of War and State, and, of course, all the major scientific figures of the time.” — Chemical & Engineering News “A wonderfully rich portrait that emerges from a carefully documented account of Conant’s role in the development of the atomic bomb and post-war nuclear policy... An extraordinarily well written text... Hershberg lays bare the person behind the persona — warts, dimples and all.” — Stanley Goldberg, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Download or read book The King of Fear written by Drew Chapman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blistering sequel to The Ascendant: An action-packed thriller starring a bond trader turned antihero. Unlikely patriot Garrett Reilly can identify threats against America from both inside and outside the nation’s borders. But now the whole world’s economy is at risk… Garrett Reilly sees what others do not: numbers, patterns, a nation on the brink of collapse. His unique talents saved countries from falling into a world war in The Ascendant. But it also made him a marked man―marked by terrorist groups; marked by the US Government. In The King of Fear, Garrett recognizes a string of events that could lead to economic Armageddon in the US: banks closing, grocery shelves lying empty, the nation’s currency rendered worthless. Total chaos could engulf society within a matter of days. Garrett and the Ascendant team reunite to face enemies on all sides: a wounded Russia bent on keeping its crumbling empire in place, a cyber genius fixated on Garrett, a femme fatale willing to do anything to establish a new world order. In the midst of this, Garrett must also confront his own demons: his class rage, growing paranoia, and a dependency that he cannot seem to shake. After all, it only takes one card to make the whole house fall… A hero with complete disregard for rules and boundaries, Drew Chapman’s rogue genius gives readers “a wild ride through the headlines of our times” (Kirkus Reviews on The Ascendant) and this sequel will not disappoint.

Download or read book The Bomb written by Fred Kaplan and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump. Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today. Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.