The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival - Hardcover

by Serhii Plokhy (Author)

The nuclear age came into existence with the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. The inauguration of this new era was epitomized by the bomb's principal creator, J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoting the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Since then, the era of the atom has become the age of the bomb?or two bombs: atomic and hydrogen.

In The Nuclear Age, Serhii Plokhy, one of our preeminent Cold War historians, explores why governments have acquired and stockpiled nuclear weapons and reveals the global failure to reach meaningful nuclear arms treaties. Plokhy shows how, since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the risk of nuclear war has never been so high: Russia threatens nuclear aggression in its war on Ukraine; China is constructing hundreds of new missile silos; and India and Pakistan are locked in ongoing nuclear competition. Plokhy also examines how more countries than ever have come within perilous reach of acquiring nuclear arms, while new technologies, such as hypersonic missiles and artificial intelligence, make the nuclear landscape increasingly unpredictable.

From Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Castle Bravo test of 1954, to the rapidly developing nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, The Nuclear Age reveals the fear that governs the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Plokhy profiles the global players who have diagnosed, stoked, and influenced this fear, from H. G. Wells to Nikita Khrushchev and Vladimir Putin, and he outlines what we might learn from our past to control today's arms race. As the danger of nuclear war remains imminent, The Nuclear Age diagnoses our era of rearmament.

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Praise for the Work of Serhii Plokhy

Chernobyl Roulette

"Extraordinary....No one else was better placed to tell the tale of the 35 days of the Russian occupation of Chernobyl."
-- Tim Judah, Financial Times

"Gripping, thriller-like....Chernobyl Roulette offers [Serhii Plokhy's] penetrating insight."
-- The Economist

The Russo-Ukrainian War

"Compelling....erudite, objective and immensely readable."
-- Ben Hall, Financial Times

"An utterly compelling account, deeply personal, persuasively authoritative, surely the must-read book for this challenging moment."
-- Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

Atoms and Ashes

"Frightening....With catastrophic climate change bearing down on us, nuclear power has been promoted by some as an obvious solution, but this sobering history urges us to look hard at that bargain for what it is."
-- Jennifer Szalai, New York Times

Nuclear Folly

"Superb....Engrossing and terrifying, surely one of the most important books ever written about the Cuban Missile Crisis and 20th-century international relations."
-- James Rosen, Wall Street Journal