READING THE BOMB

"By threatening extinction, this ultimate antipersonnel device is in essence an antibaby device...the babies who will never be born, those that are queueing up in spectral relays until the end of time." Einstein's Monsters

Recommended Select Annotated Bibliography

                                     

                                  

ALPEROVITZ, GAR. (1995) (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Exhaustive, excellent account with the author attempting to end the debate once and for all)

AMIS, MARTIN. (1987) Einstein's Monsters (Blend of esssay and fiction by the award winning British author. Amis would divide human history into Before and After the Bomb)






                                                 

BIRD, KAI and MARTIN SHERWIN. (2006) American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (The personal, political life of the leader of the Manhattan Project)

                                               

                                                 

                

BROWN, ANTHONY CAVE, Ed. (1978) Operation World War III: The American Plan for World War III Against Russia in 1957 (The plan ordered up by President Truman in 1949 with the assumption that Nuclear War would break out between the superpowers by 1957. A once "top secret" document. *If any reader knows of a similar Soviet plan from the Cold War that has been published in book form - please advise in "Comments" section and it will be included here)

                                                   

CIRINCIONE, JOSEPH. (2007) Bomb Scare: The History & Future of Nuclear Weapons (By an expert, featured television commentator, on Nuclear Weapons and their dangerous proliferation)

___________________. (2013) Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late (The emphasis here - Time is Up!)

                                                 

DeGROOT, GERARD J. (2004) The Bomb: A Life ("I wanted to present the entire life of the Bomb in one volume in order to provide a sense of its size and a feeling for its ubiquity." He's more than done that here. "Reveals everything you ever wanted to know about Nuclear Weapons, including things you were too terrified to ask." - USA TODAY)





                                                 

DOBBS, MICHAEL. (2008) One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (The 1962 Missile Crisis)




                                                    

FETTER-VORM, JONATHAN. (2012) Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb (The history "lite" in illustrated form, yet striking and informative)




                                                 

GOLSTEIN, DONALD M. (1995) Rain of Ruin: A Photographic History of Hiroshima and Nagasaki




                                                      

HERSEY, JOHN. (1946) Hiroshima (The Classic Account first published in The New Yorker. Widely considered to have altered Americans' perceptions of the Atomic Bombings) *See Blog Post below - Beneath the Bombs of August



                                                 

HAM, PAUL. (2014) Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath (Major account packed with facts and leavened by the author's humanity) *See Blog Post below - Russia/USSR Factor in US Atomic Bombing




                                                   

                                                 

HASEGAWA, TSUYOSHI. (2005) Racing the Enemy (The author who researched the records and the evidence in Russian, Japanese and American archives and is fluent in all three languages, cites the declaration of war by the USSR as causing Japan to capitulate. Tokyo was not ready to capitulate before Hiroshima nor was it ready to surrender after Nagasaki. "Hasegawa has changed my mind. The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings." - Richard Rhodes)
















                                                      

KAPLAN, FRED. (1983) The Wizards of Armageddon (Reveals the secret world of nuclear strategists, an alarmingly small circle)
                                                   

                                                 
                                                   

LETTOW, PAUL. (2005) Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Reagan's surprising, strong commitment to Abolition, The Reykjavik Summit)




                                                    

LOWN, BERNARD, MD. (2008) Prescription For Survival (A founder of the Physicians' Movement for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize)



                                                    

                                                      

McNAMARA, ROBERT. (1986) Blundering Into Disaster (On the ever increasing risk of Nuclear War, by the former Sec. of Defense)



                                               

PERRY, WILLIAM J. (2015) My Journey at the Nuclear Brink (From our former Sec. of Defense and one of the Wall St Journal "Op Ed" four, with George Shultz, Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger who have written of the dangers of Nuclear Weapons today. The book is dedicated by the author to: "our children, grandchildren and great-grandchild who have given me the best of all reasons to continue my work to ensure that Nuclear Weapons are never used again.")



                                                

RHODES, RICHARD. (1986) The Making of the Atomic Bomb
__________________. (1995) Dark Sun
__________________. (2007) Arsenals of Folly
(The Essential trilogy on the A-Bomb, the H-Bomb and the dangerous folly of our continued contemplation of their use)
RHODES, RICHARD. (2010) The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without  Nuclear Weapons (The author's urgent last word on the subject and his hopes for Abolition)




                                                    

ROSENBAUM, RON. (2011) How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III (Chilling, realistic scenarios of The End - unless we do something about the danger soon)




                                                 

SAGAN, CARL. (1990) A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter (From the author and TV host of Cosmos.Groundbreaking scientific study and analysis of the catastrophic effects of even a "limited" Nuclear War - "Nearly all Americans will die."




                                                     

SCHEER, ROBERT. (1982) With Enough Shovels (Presents the absolute lunacy of "Civil Defense" plans in the event of a Nuclear War in the early years of the Reagan administration, later abandoned in favor of abolition summitry and Reykjavik)




                                                 

SCARRY, ELAINE. (2014) Thermonuclear Monarchy (Using, for example, President Nixon's statement at a White House party that he had the power to kill 70 million people in 25 minutes, the author decries that power now vested, unconstitutionally she argues, in the hands of the President of the United States)





                                                   

SCHELL, JONATHAN. (2000) The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition
___________________  (2007) The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of the Nuclear Danger
(Cogent, Passionate, Eloquent. By the late, great author writing to and for all of us. First appeared in The New Yorker, 1982, 1984, respectively)





                               
                                                      

                                             

SCHLOSSER, ERIC. (2013) Command And Control (From the Damascus, Arkansas, Titan II "accident" of 1980 and back and forth in time through our many near Nuclear Weapons Armageddons when nuclear bombs fell from the sky, crashed in planes, and were lost" at sea, among many outrageously dangerous mishaps. Not to mention the numerous "false alarms" and near launches of these weapons. Command And Control is really about the frightening lack of same with our Nuclear Arsenal. A NYTS Bestseller. Now an Academy Award nominated documentary available on DVD)

                                                
SHULTZ, GEORGE. (2015) The War That Must Never Be Fought (Pres. Reagan's Sec. of State and his call for the honoring of the NPT Treaty (Nuclear Non-Proliferation) signed over 40 years ago by the then Nuclear Weapons nations - which calls for a Grand Bargain between the Nuclear Weapons haves and have-nots - Disarmament by the former in exchange for non-proliferation by the latter. The have-nots have kept their part of the bargain but are growing impatient - thus the Marshall Islands Lawsuit against the Nuclear Weapons States.



                                                   

TAUBMAN, PHILIP. (2012) The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (The "Gang of Five" of Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry, George Shultz and Sidney Drell, who decided to go public with their call to dismantle the very Nuclear Weapons System that they helped to construct)




                                                  

                                                    

WILLS, GARY. (2011) Bomb Power (How the sheer destructive power of the Bomb has adversely shaped the Office of the Presidency)




                                                

WILSON, WARD. (2013) Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons (Demolishes the main myths that would have us believe that Nuclear Weapons are worth the risk)




                                                     

WITTNER, LAWRENCE S. (1997) Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Traces the development of the grassroots international movement for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons)

All of the above volumes can be purchased from the usual suspects: B&N, Amazon, ABE Books, assorted "market place" booksellers on line, or can be found at your local library.

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