EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book Prescription for Survival

Download or read book Prescription for Survival written by Bernard Lown and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2008 with total page 461 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of how a group of Soviet and American doctors came together to stop nuclear proliferation and ended up winning the Nobel Peace Prize and influencing the course of history. This book also sheds light on what really drove and still drives the nuclear arms race, and the importance of citizen involvement in social change efforts.

Book Nuclear Madness

Download or read book Nuclear Madness written by Ira Chernus and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book builds on Robert Jay Lifton's theory of psychic numbing, and takes madness as a guiding metaphor. It shows that public perceptions of the Bomb are a kaleidoscope of ever-changing ideas and images. Recent changes in public awareness only signal new symptoms of this public madness, symptoms unwittingly fostered by the antinuclear movement. Since the newest nuclear images follow the same psychological pattern as their predecessors, they are likely to lead us deeper into nuclear madness. Chernus offers new interpretations of four major theorists int the psychology of religion--Paul Tillich, R.D. Laing, Mircea Eliade, and James Hillman--to trace the roots of nuclear madness back to the onset of modernity, when the West gained technological mastery at the price of losing religious imagination and ontological security. The author develops an interpretation of Lifton's own thought as an ontological and religious psychology. Drawing on the work of Eliade and Hillman, he goes on to suggest that madness reflects a repressed desire to transform life by opening up the floodgates of imagination. A conscious cultivation of the play of imagination can lead the way through madness to sanity and peace. But, imagination can only respond to the nuclear threat if it is acted out in a new brand of peace activism that blends pragmatic politics with psychological and religious transformation.

Book Nuclear Roulette

Download or read book Nuclear Roulette written by Gar Smith and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear power is not clean, cheap, or safe. With Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, the nuclear industry's record of catastrophic failures now averages one major disaster every decade. After three US-designed plants exploded in Japan, many countries moved to abandon reactors for renewables. In the United States, however, powerful corporations and a compliant government still defend nuclear power-while promising billion-dollar bailouts to operators. Each new disaster demonstrates that the nuclear industry and governments lie to "avoid panic," to preserve the myth of "safe, clean" nuclear power, and to sustain government subsidies. Tokyo and Washington both covered up Fukushima's radiation risks and-when confronted with damning evidence-simply raised the levels of "acceptable" risk to match the greater levels of exposure. Nuclear Roulette dismantles the core arguments behind the nuclear-industrial complex's "Nuclear Renaissance." While some critiques are familiar-nuclear power is too costly, too dangerous, and too unstable-others are surprising: Nuclear Roulette exposes historic links to nuclear weapons, impacts on Indigenous lands and lives, and the ways in which the Nuclear Regulatory Commission too often takes its lead from industry, rewriting rules to keep failing plants in compliance. Nuclear Roulette cites NRC records showing how corporations routinely defer maintenance and lists resulting "near-misses" in the US, which average more than one per month. Nuclear Roulette chronicles the problems of aging reactors, uncovers the costly challenge of decommissioning, explores the industry's greatest seismic risks-not on California's quake-prone coast but in the Midwest and Southeast-and explains how solar flares could black out power grids, causing the world's 400-plus reactors to self-destruct. This powerful exposé concludes with a roundup of proven and potential energy solutions that can replace nuclear technology with a "Renewable Renaissance," combined with conservation programs that can cleanse the air, and cool the planet.

Book Nuclear Madness

    Book Details:
  • Author : Helen Caldicott
  • Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
  • Release : 1994
  • ISBN : 9780393310115
  • Pages : 252 pages

Download or read book Nuclear Madness written by Helen Caldicott and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1994 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear waste dumping has further poisoned our environment, and developing nuclear technology in the Third World poses still further risks.

Book Curing Nuclear Madness

Download or read book Curing Nuclear Madness written by Frank G. Sommers and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1984 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Doomsday Machine

Download or read book The Doomsday Machine written by Daniel Ellsberg and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-12-05 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist for The California Book Award in Nonfiction The San Francisco Chronicle's Best of the Year List Foreign Affairs Best Books of the Year In These Times “Best Books of the Year" Huffington Post's Ten Excellent December Books List LitHub's “Five Books Making News This Week” From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America's Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that continues to this day. Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization--and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration--threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Framed as a memoir--a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating--this gripping exposé reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing "doomsday machine" and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book about not just our country, but the future of the world.

Book Command and Control

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eric Schlosser
  • Publisher : Penguin
  • Release : 2013-09-17
  • ISBN : 1101638664
  • Pages : 702 pages

Download or read book Command and Control written by Eric Schlosser and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-09-17 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal. “A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Fascinating.” —Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine “Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety.” —San Francisco Chronicle A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten. Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.

Book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer

Download or read book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer written by Helen Caldicott and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2007-09-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The renowned antinuclear activist delivers a “frighteningly convincing argument” against nuclear energy as a solution to climate change (Publishers Weekly). In a world torn apart by wars over oil, politicians have stepped up their search for alternative energy sources—and their leading choice is nuclear energy. But nuclear energy’s popularity as a green alternative is based on misinformation. People claim that nuclear-powered electricity does not cause global warming or pollution, that it is inexpensive, and that it is safe. These claims, as Helen Caldicott demonstrates, are untrue. In Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer, Caldicott digs beneath the nuclear industry’s propaganda to examine the actual costs and environmental consequences of nuclear energy. In fact, nuclear power does contribute to global warming; the cost is prohibitive, with taxpayers picking up most of the tab; there’s not enough uranium in the world to sustain it over the long term; and the potential for a catastrophic accident or a terrorist attack far outweighs any benefits. In concluding chapters, Caldicott details alternative sustainable energy sources that are the key to a clean, green future.

Book Nuclear Showdown

Download or read book Nuclear Showdown written by Gordon G. Chang and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-11-10 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nuclear Showdown published by Asia expert, Gordon Chang, was of the first books to exploire the full extent of the North Korean nuclear threat, its origins, international implications, and solutions. The United States is the mightiest nation in history, yet for six decades one of the world's weakest states has challenged the superpower and kept it at bay. Today, that country also threatens to change the course of human events with an act of unimaginable devastation. Nuclear Showdown analyses the failed society that has become the gravest threat to America and international order: North Korea. Chang's insightful book reveals the full horror of the crisis threatening to turn Asia into the world's next battleground. How can North Korea be stopped? No one seems to have an answer. For more than half a century, policymakers have failed when it comes to subjugating Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong Il. Nuclear Showdown proposes a solution that can defuse the standoff once and for all.

Book The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy

Download or read book The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy written by Matthew Kroenig and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, the reigning scholarly wisdom about nuclear weapons policy has been that the United States only needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and still be able to respond with a devastating counterattack. So long as the US, or any other nation, retains such an assured retaliation capability, no sane leader would intentionally launch a nuclear attack against it, and nuclear deterrence will hold. According to this theory, possessing more weapons than necessary for a second-strike capability is illogical. This argument is reasonable, but, when compared to the empirical record, it raises an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has always maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. In The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy, Matthew Kroenig challenges the conventional wisdom and explains why a robust nuclear posture, above and beyond a mere second-strike capability, contributes to a state's national security goals. In fact, when a state has a robust nuclear weapons force, such a capability reduces its expected costs in a war, provides it with bargaining leverage, and ultimately enhances nuclear deterrence. This book provides a novel theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it helps resolve one of the most-intractable puzzles in international security studies. Buoyed by an innovative thesis and a vast array of historical and quantitative evidence, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy will force scholars to reconsider their basic assumptions about the logic of nuclear deterrence.

Book The Nuclear Express

    Book Details:
  • Author : Thomas Reed
  • Publisher : Zenith Press
  • Release : 2010-11-10
  • ISBN : 1616732423
  • Pages : 407 pages

Download or read book The Nuclear Express written by Thomas Reed and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2010-11-10 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a political history of nuclear weapons from the discovery of fission in 1938 to the nuclear train wreck that seems to loom in our future. It is an account of where those weapons came from, how the technology surprisingly and covertly spread, and who is likely to acquire those weapons next and most importantly why. The authors’ examination of post Cold War national and geopolitical issues regarding nuclear proliferation and the effects of Chinese sponsorship of the Pakistani program is eye opening. The reckless “nuclear weapons programs for sale” exporting of technology by Pakistan is truly chilling, as is the on-again off-again North Korean nuclear weapons program.

Book The Road to Madness

Download or read book The Road to Madness written by J. Samuel Walker and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NCAA men's basketball tournament is one of the iconic events in American sports. In this fast-paced, in-depth account, J. Samuel Walker and Randy Roberts identify the 1973–74 season as pivotal in the making of this now legendary postseason tournament. In an era when only one team per conference could compete, the dramatic defeat of coach John Wooden's UCLA Bruins by the North Carolina State Wolfpack ended a decade of the Bruins' dominance, fueled unprecedented national attention, and prompted the NCAA to expand the tournament field to a wider range of teams. Walker and Roberts provide a richly detailed chronicle of the games that made the season so memorable and uncover the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that set the stage for the celebrated spectacle that now fixes the nation's attention every March.

Book Empire and the Bomb

    Book Details:
  • Author : Joseph Gerson
  • Publisher : Pluto Press
  • Release : 2007-03-20
  • ISBN : 9780745324944
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book Empire and the Bomb written by Joseph Gerson and published by Pluto Press. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is the only country to have dropped the atomic bomb. Since the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, every U.S. president has threatened nuclear war. This concise history shows how the U.S. has used nuclear weapons to bolster its imperial ambitions. Leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner Joseph Gerson explains why atomic weapons were first built and used -- and how the U.S. uses them today to preserve its global empire. Gerson reveals how and why the U.S. made more than twenty threats of nuclear attack during the Cold War -- against Russia, China, Vietnam, and the Middle East. He shows how such theats continued under Presidents Bush and Clinton, and George W. Bush. The book concludes with an appeal for nuclear weapons abolition and an overview of the history of the anti-nuclear movement. Drawing from a wide range of sources, this fascinating and timely account shows how the U.S. has used nuclear weapons to dominate the world.

Book The Bomb

    Book Details:
  • Author : Fred Kaplan
  • Publisher : Simon & Schuster
  • Release : 2021-02-02
  • ISBN : 1982107308
  • Pages : 384 pages

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.

Book The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition

Download or read book The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition written by Jonathan Schell and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These two books, which helped focus national attention on the movement for a nuclear freeze, are published in one volume.

Book Radioactive Ghosts

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gabriele Schwab
  • Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
  • Release : 2020-10-20
  • ISBN : 1452961441
  • Pages : 416 pages

Download or read book Radioactive Ghosts written by Gabriele Schwab and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pioneering examination of nuclear trauma, the continuing and new nuclear peril, and the subjectivities they generate Amid resurgent calls for widespread nuclear energy and “limited nuclear war,” the populations that must live with the consequences of these decisions are increasingly insecure. The nuclear peril combined with the looming threat of climate change means that we are seeing the formation of a new kind of subjectivity: humans who are in a position of perpetual ontological insecurity. In Radioactive Ghosts, Gabriele Schwab articulates a vision of these “nuclear subjectivities” that we all live with. Focusing on the legacies of the Manhattan Project, Hiroshima, and nuclear energy politics, Radioactive Ghosts takes us on a tour of the little-seen sides of our nuclear world. Examining devastating uranium mining on Native lands, nuclear sacrifice zones, the catastrophic accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, and the formation of a new transspecies ethics, Schwab shows how individuals threatened with extinction are creating new adaptations, defenses, and communal spaces. Ranging from personal accounts of experiences with radiation to in-depth readings of literature, film, art, and scholarly works, Schwab gives us a complex, idiosyncratic, and personal analysis of one of the most overlooked issues of our time.

Book The Politics of Nuclear Weapons

Download or read book The Politics of Nuclear Weapons written by Andrew Futter and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an introduction to political and strategic aspects of nuclear weaponry. It offers an accessible overview of the concept of nuclear weapons, outlines how thinking about these weapons has developed and considers how nuclear threats can continue to be managed in the future. It includes: Coverage of nuclear testing, proliferation, strategy, global actors and disarmament. Analysis of contemporary topics such as nuclear terrorism. A timeline of key nuclear events. Annotated further reading lists helping you to locate sources for essays and assignments. Summaries, study questions and a glossary of key terms Free SAGE journal articles available on the Resources tab The author will be providing regular updates to his suggested web resources, so be sure to check the Resources tab for the most up-to-date. The Politics of Nuclear Weapons is essential reading for both undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses in Nuclear Politics.