Here are 100 books that The Wizards of Armageddon fans have personally recommended if you like
The Wizards of Armageddon.
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I have always had a passion to engage with the deepest questions of existence, from the interpretation of quantum mechanics to string theory and cosmology. My desire to understand is driven purely by curiosity, and my aim in writing about these topics is to make the wonders of the universe as widely accessible as possible. But scientific knowledge and the advance of technology also has a potentially darker side. It is vital for the future of humanity that science is widely understood so that democratic informed decisions can be made to safeguard against its misuse, and this was the motivation for recommending my list of books.
Command and Control is the gripping story of an accident at an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile silo in Arkansas in 1980 that resulted in the explosion of a Titan II missile.
The explosion blew the concrete lid off the silo and sent the missile’s nine-megaton thermonuclear warhead hurtling one hundred metres through the air. Fortunately, the warhead, which had 500 times the explosive power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, did not explode.
Interwoven with the minute-by-minute account of this accident, Schlosser gives a riveting history of the development of nuclear weapons by the U.S. military and discusses the mechanisms that have been devised to ensure that they are not detonated unintentionally. He also describes numerous other alarming nuclear mishaps that have occurred over the years.
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 expose of America's nuclear weapons
Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of…
I started researching the way the West’s intelligence services manipulated the public when I was a student in the mid-1970s. I then became an investigative journalist and often returned to the subject in different ways, especially as a national security correspondent. I fully acknowledge the massive manipulation by the Communist Bloc during the Cold War but believe that it is important the public is aware of the manipulation that the West’s Cold Warriors utilized is fully known and recognized as it has left a legacy that has allowed for the rise of ‘fake news’.
This may be over 20 years old but it is still the best account of the CIA’s massive interventions in culture and politics across the world and domestically in the Cold War. Detailed research and authoritatively written. The full story of the CIA’s intervention in the UK is still not fully told, with its covert operations in the Labour Party and we still do not know who the 50 British journalists were who were paid salaries by the CIA.
James Oliver and I covered the UK’s Information Research Department’s (IRD) mirror operation from 1947-1977 in Britain’s Secret Propaganda War. What this shows was that many ‘leading’ journalists, academics, politicians, and artists were not the best of their generation but were elevated by secret funding, publishing, and promotion because they suited the agenda of Anglo-US intelligence agencies.
During the Cold War, writers and artists were faced with a huge challenge. In the Soviet world, they were expected to turn out works that glorified militancy, struggle and relentless optimism. In the West, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy's most cherished possession. But such freedom could carry a cost. This book documents the extraordinary energy of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West became instruments - whether they knew it or not, whether they liked it or not - of America's secret service.
I (Robert) am primarily interested in modern British history. During my postgraduate studies, I worked mainly with government papers that had just been declassified. Like many historians, I enjoy unraveling the mystery that archival research offers and shedding light on forgotten or unheard stories. Meanwhile, Peter, my co-author, is passionate about the intersection between national security and human rights. He developed this interest during his PhD research, which examined the institutionalization of torture during the Iraq War. This research relied heavily on documents released via freedom of information requests and leaks, both of which are relevant to our book on the Official Record.
Written by perhaps the best journalist who has made it their business to explore and expose the more nefarious aspects of UK foreign policy in recent decades, this book should be read by all interested in UK foreign policy.
Written in an accessible style, this book provides details about the manipulation of the UK official record in places as diverse as Kenya, Yemen, Cyprus, and the UK itself.
The book illuminates key moments in history and explains slightly confounding terms such as D-Notices and the Official Secrets Act.
In 1889, the first Official Secrets Act was passed, creating offences of 'disclosure of information' and 'breach of official trust'. It limited and monitored what the public could, and should, be told. Since then a culture of secrecy has flourished. As successive governments have been selective about what they choose to share with the public, we have been left with a distorted and incomplete understanding not only of the workings of the state but of our nation's culture and its past.
In this important book, Ian Cobain offers a fresh appraisal of some of the key moments in British history…
I started researching the way the West’s intelligence services manipulated the public when I was a student in the mid-1970s. I then became an investigative journalist and often returned to the subject in different ways, especially as a national security correspondent. I fully acknowledge the massive manipulation by the Communist Bloc during the Cold War but believe that it is important the public is aware of the manipulation that the West’s Cold Warriors utilized is fully known and recognized as it has left a legacy that has allowed for the rise of ‘fake news’.
Red Alert is a 1958 novel by a former RAF pilot called Peter George about nuclear war and was the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick in the concept of his 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. George’s book is a great read and pretty grim but it is not comedic in any way. After playing around with storyboards for a film based on the book, Kubrick realised the only way to deal with the nuclear mindset was through satire. Inspired by Peter George Kubrick somehow got to the nub of the lunacy of the nuclear gamble.
This was three decades before I was able – using then declassified documents and interviews with the generals and policymakers only then just prepared to speak about Mutual Assured Destruction and the Doomsday machine for my documentaries and book in the mid-1990s. They revealed Kubrick,…
The basis for Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove: A chilling Cold War thriller in which unchecked power unleashes total nuclear disaster.
Air Force Brigadier General Quinten is a dying man suffering from the paranoid delusion that he can make the world a better place by ordering a full-scale nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Receiving word of the attack already underway, the president of the United States and his advisors now must work frantically to stop it. The US bombers are to be shot down—but a lone bomber called the “Alabama Angel” escapes and flies on to complete its lunatic…
I am a professor of history who specializes in the United States and the Cold War. A large part of my job involves choosing books that are informative, but that the students will actually want to read. That means I often select novels, memoirs, and works of history that have compelling figures or an entertaining narrative. After more than twenty years of teaching, I’ve assigned many different books in my classes. These are the ones that my students enjoyed the most.
By the time I read this book, the Cold War was over, and fears about accidental nuclear war had faded, if not quite totally disappeared. Nevertheless, this one brought me back to my childhood, when movies like War Games and The Day After raised the specter of nuclear holocaust.
It is in the same genre: a technical glitch mistakenly sets in motion America’s nuclear defenses, which could lead to global nuclear war. I was not prepared for the ending (no spoiler!), but it was an effective way to show the dangers of using technology to control America’s nuclear arsenal.
From the New York Times–bestselling authors, this “chilling and engrossing” nuclear-showdown thriller packs “a multi-megaton wallop” (Chicago Tribune).
Originally published during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this suspenseful novel takes off as a group of American bombers—armed with a deadly payload of nuclear weapons—heads towards Moscow, their motives unknown. Suddenly, a nuclear apocalypse looms closer than it ever has, and the lives of millions depend on the high-stakes diplomacy of leaders on both sides of the divide.
The basis for the classic 1964 movie starring Henry Fonda, this two-million-copy bestseller is not only a terrifying thriller, but a fascinating social commentary…
I’ve always been fascinated by the strangeness of human character when tested to the limit by overwhelming catastrophe. I’ve always wanted to write a story that brings into stark relief the courage, fear, ambition, tragedy, absurdity, and the ecstatic. In other words, a disaster. And if character is destiny, then an apocalypse maybe the best way to show us who we really are and where we’re going. My debut novel, Delirium focuses on these extremes of character. And after writing it I reached one indelible conclusion: that the human being is the most disturbed creature, but also the most hopeful.
I’ve always preferred those stories of great global catastrophes that remain in a single small location.
In the case of Alas, Babylon the small town of Fort Repose survives the nuclear holocaust because it’s small. Written at the height of the cold war when there were several and very real moments of brinkmanship between the Soviets and Americans.
It’s a great read for another reason: this is a well-informed writer. For instance, here we find that salt is as vital for survival as water? And what good is a doctor if he has no medicine? These are things this little community has to face, but the author is hopeful.
This is one of those books that is a lens into a period in time but is at the same time easily readable and to the point. How Fort Repose deals with nuclear Armageddon is the same story of how all…
“An extraordinary real picture of human beings numbed by catastrophe but still driven by the unconquerable determination of living creatures to keep on being alive.” —The New Yorker
“Alas, Babylon.” Those fateful words heralded the end. When the unthinkable nightmare of nuclear holocaust ravaged the United States, it was instant death for tens of millions of people; for survivors, it was a nightmare of hunger, sickness, and brutality. Overnight, a thousand years of civilization were stripped away.
But for one small Florida town, miraculously spared against all the odds, the struggle was only just beginning, as the isolated survivors—men and…
I started my career as a historian of gender and sexuality, but in what I sometimes describe as a mid-career crisis I became a historian of the US Army. I love doing research in archives, piecing together the scraps of stories and conversations into a broader whole, figuring out how people made sense of the world they lived in. The books I write make arguments that I hope will be useful to other historians and to military leaders, but I also want people to enjoy reading them.
This is the army that drafted the King of Rock and Roll.
But it is also an army that feared it was becoming irrelevant and tried to reinvent itself for the atomic age. It’s fascinating to watch a historian as knowledgeable as Brian Linn weave a story that connects the army’s move to incorporate men across the lines of race and class, region and religion, education, and ability, with its efforts to develop doctrine for sophisticated technological warfare.
When the U.S. Army drafted Elvis Presley in 1958, it quickly set about transforming the King of Rock and Roll from a rebellious teen idol into a clean-cut GI. Trading in his gold-trimmed jacket for standard-issue fatigues, Elvis became a model soldier in an army facing the unprecedented challenge of building a fighting force for the Atomic Age.
In an era that threatened Soviet-American thermonuclear annihilation, the army declared it could limit atomic warfare to the battlefield. It not only adopted a radically new way of fighting but also revamped its equipment, organization, concepts, and training practices. From massive garrisons…
It’s common to talk about why you love the subject you research. I have no love for nuclear weapons. They are, however, central to understanding international politics since 1945. The nuclear age is one of inconsistencies. Nuclear weapons drive many crises but may make major wars between nuclear states less likely. They generate reassurance and anxiety among allies in almost equal measure. The books in this list all grapple with the nuclear shadow’s shape and scale. Most combine an analytical framework with historical study, but all are attuned to theory and strategy. As for me, I’m an associate professor at Virginia Tech, where I research and teach on international relations.
It’s hard to overstate just how influential Marc Trachtenberg’s A Constructed Peace, and really all of his writing, has been on my thinking. I constantly return to its pages and find fresh insights each time. I’m drawn in by the writing style, but the substance is even more impressive. The book—examining British, French, Soviet, West German, and U.S. policy—was what first opened my eyes to the centrality of Germany and debates on nuclear control in the origins and evolution of the Cold War. U.S. efforts to offset the Soviet challenge and reduce the U.S. continental commitment by reviving West Germany and then essentially providing it with nuclear weapons contributed to some of the Cold War’s most dangerous crises.
Aiming to unravel events leading to the Cold War, this book argues against the theory that it was a simple two-sided conflict between America and Russia. The author contends that the German question, especially in the nuclear field, was largely responsible, and a relatively stable peace took shape only when these issues were resolved. The book should be of interest to students of the Cold War, those concerned with the problem of war and peace, and in particular with the question of how a stable international order can be constructed.
I have been interested in the nature of scientific discovery, in scientific discoverers, and in particular in how science may operate and even be successful under oppressive regimes. I have lived under a variety of political systems, which has strengthened this personal interest. I have known a number of the heroes of these books and have written about them, too.
I found it very interesting how this book provides the background of the development of Soviet nuclear science and the creation of the atomic and hydrogen bombs in the Soviet Union.
It is written by a historian; the narrative is accurate yet accessible. It helped me understand how a country having suffered terrible losses in a devastating war and obsolete infrastructure could become one of the two mightiest superpowers due to its ruthless concentration of resources to a chosen goal and a group of scientists among the world’s best.
For forty years the Soviet-American nuclear arms race dominated world politics, yet the Soviet nuclear establishment was shrouded in secrecy. Now that the Cold War is over and the Soviet Union has collapsed, it is possible to answer questions that have intrigued policymakers and the public for years. How did the Soviet Union build its atomic and hydrogen bombs? What role did espionage play? How did the American atomic monopoly affect Stalin's foreign policy? What was the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders? This spellbinding book answers these questions by tracing the history of Soviet nuclear…
Even before recently becoming a dad, I was passionate about reducing the risks of nuclear war. I am also firmly committed to pursuing—yet never fully knowing—the answers when it comes to achieving that. I think that trying to figure out why things happened as they did in the Cold War can sometimes help illuminate partial answers. The late Michael Krepon referred to the period 1985–1992 as the high tide of nuclear agreements and risk reduction, and I retain optimism that it can happen again. Deterrence is equally important. I have spent the past decade working on historical projects covering national security and negotiating sides of the Cold War equation.
Love is probably not the term I would use for this book. I am glad that Annie Jacobsen wrote it, and I think anyone interested in the real threat of nuclear war should read it. There are moments in it—particularly one very consequential decision that the U.S. president makes—that are highly implausible and have generated criticism from people who have devoted their careers to nuclear deterrence.
However, it is worth noting that no one actually knows how the leader of a nuclear-armed state would react to the news of an incoming nuclear attack because that scenario has never happened before. I think it is worth emphasizing this book’s subtitle: “A Scenario”—which is not “The Scenario” or “All Scenarios.” There are many scenarios that do not end as definitively as in Jacobsen’s scenario.
I include this book in the topic of reducing the risk of nuclear war because it so vividly…
