Description

“Who would have thought that 50 years after the end of the Cold War with China and 30 years after the end of the Cold War with the USSR and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union, tensions between the United States and Russia and China would again get to such a point where there is open discussion about the possibility of atomic warfare on the nightly news? But the danger of nuclear war has never left us. Whether through accident, miscalculation or malevolence, the presence of nearly 15,000 of these devices remaining in the world, while serving as deterrents for the sake of our security, also represents a direct and present threat to our civilization that far outweighs any protection they provide. This book contains interviews conducted over more than a decade with experts of all descriptions — including Daniel Ellsberg, Seymour Hersh, Gar Alperovitz, Hans Kristensen, Gordon Prather, Joe Cirincione and more — about the threat of nuclear war between major and minor powers, the nuclear arms-industrial complex, the nuclear programs and weapons of the so-called “rogue states” of Iraq, Syria, Israel and North Korea, the bitter truths and eternal lessons of America’s bombing of Japan in World War II and the dedicated activists working to abolish the bomb for all time. Nuclear bombs burn hotter than the sun. A war between the major powers could kill tens of hundreds of millions in just days. Worse, the drastic drop in global temperatures that would be caused by the smoke and soot from even a limited nuclear war could kill billions of people through crop failure and famine. It is irresponsible to allow people to possess such devices. Humanity has been very lucky so far. We must do everything we can to rid the world of this burden before our luck runs out” — Back cover.