The best books on nuclear war (and how to stop it!)

Do you ever worry about nuclear war? Do you ever think about what would happen if nuclear weapons were actually launched by any of the nine countries that possess them?

I do, and Annie Jacobsen’s new book was the perfect book for me. It’s a thoroughly researched, absolutely gripping second-by-second account of how nuclear war might unfold.

From the first page, I was hooked. This nonfiction thriller grabs you and takes you through a devastatingly plausible scenario where a single nuclear missile launch by North Korea leads to a global nuclear war. The detail is harrowing. The facts read like fiction but are unbearably true. I loved how this book pulls no punches in outlining the nightmare that awaits us if nuclear weapons are ever used.

I really enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s Academy Award-winning Oppenheimer movie, and this book is the perfect book to read after watching it. Hiroshima was the first widespread account of what Oppenheimer’s creation – the atomic bomb – did to the people of Hiroshima.

Written in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear bombing, Hiroshima tells the story of six men and women who survived amidst the destruction that killed over 100,000 other people. By focusing on these six survivors, Hersey makes the almost unimaginable scale of destruction achingly real and relatable. At one point, he describes "the wounded as silent as the dead around them," and this line sends shivers down my spine. 

Few writers can conduct such detailed investigative reporting and tell the story in such a human way that still resonates today, nearly 80 years after it was first published. 

A lot of people are consigned to the belief that nuclear weapons are here to stay and that nuclear disarmament is a naïve pipe dream. Ray Acheson’s book is the perfect remedy to this pessimistic malady, as it lays out the case for nuclear disarmament in an accessible way.

I love how Acheson grounds the book in academic research and gives a fascinating insider's account of how activists and diplomats worked together to make the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons a reality. Acheson also demonstrates how the existence of nuclear weapons is reliant on the injustices of capitalism, sexism, colonialism, and racism.

I read this book and felt optimistic that ordinary people like you and me can challenge these injustices and achieve seemingly impossible things if we work together.

One of my favourite things about this book is the clarity with which the authors—a former US Secretary of Defense and a leading nuclear policy advisor—diagnose what’s wrong with American nuclear weapons policy and propose solutions that would make us all safer.

I loved how the book is both a great public education resource (here’s what’s wrong with US nuclear policy) and a call to arms (here’s what you can do to make it better!). I also loved how the book makes it clear that the US approach to achieving national security through increasing reliance on nuclear weapons, in fact, makes the US less secure.

Nuclear weapons are not just dangerous if they are used in a nuclear war. Their development, testing, production, deployment, and decommissioning are all harmful to the planet. My favourite thing about this book is how this fact is explored and examined at the global and local levels.

With a geographer’s attention to the specifics of space and place, Alexis-Martin takes us on a journey around the world and through history that illuminates how all parts of the nuclear weapon production cycle have harmed people whose stories we often don’t hear. From indigenous communities displaced by nuclear weapons production facilities to the British veterans who were used as lab rats and exposed to nuclear tests by the state, this book uncovers the often hidden history of nuclear weapons.

I really enjoyed this, especially as Alexis-Martin then reflects on how we can prevent nuclear war in the future.