Sign-In
Cart
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
Hardcover
Armed ForcesMilitary StrategyWeapons of Mass Destruction
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9781608196708
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: Dec 5 2017
Pages: 432
Weight: 1.65
Height: 1.50 Width: 6.40 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist for The California Book Award in Nonfiction
The San Francisco Chronicle's Best of the Year List
Foreign Affairs Best Books of the Year
In These Times Best Books of the Year
LitHub's Five Books Making News This Week
From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America's Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that continues to this day. Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization--and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration--threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Framed as a memoir--a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating--this gripping exposé reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing doomsday machine and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book about not just our country, but the future of the world.
Also in
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World
Wallace, Chris
Hardcover
U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare: Devices and Techniques for Incendiaries
Army
United States Department of the Army
Paperback
Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-First Century
Payne, Keith B.
Paperback
Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World
Mayor, Adrienne
Paperback
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of Darpa, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
Jacobsen, Annie
Paperback
Globemaster Down: Soviet Espionage and the Doomed American Attempt to Sneak Nukes Into Europe
Robberson, Tod
Hardcover
A Plague Upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program
Barenblatt, Daniel
Paperback
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
Schlosser, Eric
Paperback
Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself-While the Rest of Us Die
Graff, Garrett M.
Paperback
Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World
Wallace, Chris
Paperback
The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It
MacGregor, Iain
Hardcover
U.S. Army Special Forces Guide to Unconventional Warfare: Devices and Techniques for Incendiaries
U S Department of the Army
Paperback
Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission (Large Print Edition)
Whitney, Catherine
Baier, Bret
Paperback
The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know It
Bell, David A.
Paperback
The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It
MacGregor, Iain
Paperback
The Greatest Scientific Gamble: A Story of Impossible Odds, Rival Scientists, and the Atomic Bomb
Joseloff, Michael
Paperback
Environmental Warfare in Gaza: Colonial Violence and New Landscapes of Resistance
Molavi, Shourideh C.
Paperback
Tickling the Dragon's Tail: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Scientists in the Nuclear Age
Kaplan, Jeffrey
Paperback
The Dead Hand (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy
Hoffman, David
Paperback
The Greatest Scientific Gamble: A Story of Impossible Odds, Rival Scientists, and the Atomic Bomb
Joseloff, Michael
Hardcover
A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare
Paxman, Jeremy
Harris, Robert
Paperback
Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-Up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World
Blume, Lesley M. M.
Paperback
15 Minutes: General Curtis Lemay and the Countdown to Nuclear Annihilation
Keeney, L. Douglas
Paperback
Training for Atomic Warfare: US Army Doctrine and Education in the Early Cold War, 1945-1963
Hardy, Brad
Hardcover
Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory: Grassroots Activism and Nuclear Waste in the Midwest
Huegel, Casey A.
Paperback
Flashes in the Dark Volume 2: USAF Nuclear Espionage in Argentina, 1960-1966
Marón, Gustavo
Paperback
The Impossible Bomb: The Hidden History of British Scientists and the Race to Create an Atomic Weapon
Williams, Gareth
Hardcover
State Secrets: An Insider's Chronicle of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program
Mirzayanov, Vil S.
Paperback
Defusing Armageddon: Inside Nest, America's Secret Nuclear Bomb Squad
Richelson, Jeffrey T.
Paperback
Missileman: The Secret Life of Cold War Engineer Wallace Clauson
Sullivan, Alice
Clauson, John
Paperback
Tickling the Dragon's Tail: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Scientists in the Nuclear Age
Kaplan, Jeffrey
Hardcover
The Cool War: Nuclear Forces, Crisis Signaling, and the Russo-Ukraine War, 2014 - 2022
Maloney, Sean M.
Hardcover
Arnhem 1944: An Epic Battle Revisited: Vol. 2: The Lost Victory. September-October 1944
Bergström, Christer
Paperback
The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age
Lieber, Keir A.
Press, Daryl G.
Hardcover
Legacies of the Manhattan Project: Reflections on 75 Years of a Nuclear World
Broderick, Mick
Dickerson, Hilary
Paperback
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of Darpa, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency (Large Print Edition)
Jacobsen, Annie
Hardcover
Atomic America: How a Deadly Explosion and a Feared Admiral Changed the Course of Nuclear History
Tucker, Todd
Paperback
The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War (Large Print Edition)
Brands, H. W.
Paperback
Cleaning Up the Bomb Factory: Grassroots Activism and Nuclear Waste in the Midwest
Huegel, Casey A.
Hardcover
Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II (Large Print Edition)
Thomas, Evan
Thomas, Evan
Paperback
Oliphant: The Australian Genius Who Developed Radar and Showed Oppenheimer How to Build the Bomb
Perry, Roland
Paperback
Prompt and Utter Destruction, Third Edition: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan
Walker, J. Samuel
Paperback
The End of Violence: France and the Single Struggle of Jacques de Bollardière
McDonnell, Hugh
Hardcover
Ready Aim Fire: Major James Francis Thomas: The Fourth Victim in the Execution of Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant
Unkles, James
Paperback
The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump
Perry, William J.
Collina, Tom Z.
Hardcover
Biowarrior: Inside the Soviet/Russian Biological War Machine
Orent, Wendy
Domaradskij, Igor V.
Hardcover
Flashes in the Dark Volume 1: USAF Covert Operations and Nuclear Intelligence in Argentina, 1946-1957
Marón, Gustavo
Paperback
Aftermath: The Remnants of War: From Landmines to Chemical Warfare--The Devastating Effects of Modern Combat
Webster, Donovan
Paperback
My Last Battle: A U.S. Air Force Veteran's Lifelong Mission to Expose and Ban Uranium Weapons
Lopez, Damacio A.
Hardcover
The Gas and Flame Men: Baseball and the Chemical Warfare Service During World War I
Leeke, Jim
Hardcover
Raised in the Shadow of the Bomb: Children of the Manhattan Project
Steinberg, Deborah Leah
Paperback
My Last Battle: A U.S. Air Force Veteran's Lifelong Mission to Expose and Ban Uranium Weapons
Lopez, Damacio A.
Paperback
Laboratory Warriors: How Allied Science and Technology Tipped the Balance in World War II
Shachtman, Tom
Paperback
The Us Atlas of Nuclear Fallout 1951-1970 Vol. I Abridged General Reader Edition
Miller, Richard L.
Paperback
Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace: The Rise, Demise, and Revival of Arms Control
Krepon, Michael
Paperback
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World--Told from the Inside by the Man Who Ran It
Alibek, Ken
Handelman, Stephen
Paperback
Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis
Higuchi, Toshihiro
Paperback
The Official U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Operations Field Manual
Department of the Army
Paperback
How The Hell Did We Get Here?: A Citizen's Guide to the New Cold War and the Rebuilding of Deterrence
Struhsaker, Paul
Hardcover
On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site
Gerber, Michele Stenehjem
Paperback
Personal and Family Survival (Historic Reference Edition): The Historic Cold-War-Era Manual For Preparing For Emergency Shelter Survival And Civil Def
U. S. Office of Civil Defense
Paperback
The Chinese Phantom: The Hunt for the World's Most Dangerous Arms Dealer
Giesen, Christoph
Grüll, Philipp
Obermaier, Frederik
Paperback
The Sleeper Agent: The Rise of Lyme Disease, Chronic Illness, and the Great Imitator Antigens of Biological Warfare
Finnegan, A. W.
Paperback
Personal and Family Survival (Historic Reference Edition): The Historic Cold-War-Era Manual For Preparing For Emergency Shelter Survival And Civil Def
U S Office of Civil Defense
Hardcover