A comprehensive, chronological, and gripping account of how nuclear policy has shaped world history.

A gripping account of the intense rivalry between Russia and the West, from bestselling author and former diplomat Rodric Braithwaite In 1945, the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Warfare was never the same again. Armageddon and Paranoia relates how the power of the atom was harnessed to produce weapons capable of destroying human civilisation, and what this has done to the world. There are few villains in this story: on both sides of the Iron Curtain, dedicated scientists cracked the secrets of nature while dutiful military men planned out possible manoeuvres and politicians wrestled with intolerable decisions. Patriotic citizens acquiesced to the idea that their country needed the ultimate means of defence. Some protested, citing the unanswerable question: what end could possibly be served by such fearsome means? None wanted to start a nuclear war, but all were paranoid about what the other side might do. The danger of annihilation - by accident or design - has never quite left the world. As fears about who controls the nuclear codes continue to make headlines, Rodric Braithwaite (author of bestsellers Moscow 1941 and Afgantsy) has painted a vivid and detailed portrait of this intense period in history - and its terrifying implications today.

A frightening but necessary assessment of the threat posed by nuclear weapons in the twenty-first century, edited by the world's leading antinuclear activist With the world's attention focused on climate change and terrorism, we are in danger of taking our eyes off the nuclear threat. But rising tensions between Russia and NATO, proxy wars erupting in Syria and Ukraine, a nuclear-armed Pakistan, and stockpiles of aging weapons unsecured around the globe make a nuclear attack or a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility arguably the biggest threat facing humanity. In Sleepwalking to Armageddon, pioneering antinuclear activist Helen Caldicott assembles the world's leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today. Chapters address the size and distribution of the current global nuclear arsenal, the history and politics of nuclear weapons, the culture of modern-day weapons labs, the militarization of space, and the dangers of combining artificial intelligence with nuclear weaponry, as well as a status report on enriched uranium and a shocking analysis of spending on nuclear weapons over the years. The book ends with a devastating description of what a nuclear attack on Manhattan would look like, followed by an overview of contemporary antinuclear activism. Both essential and terrifying, this book is sure to become the new bible of the antinuclear movement—to wake us from our complacency and urge us to action.

This text re-examines 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion's' popularity, investigating why it has persisted, as well as larger questions about the success of conspiracy theories even in the face of claims that they are blatantly counterfactual and irrational.

Doomsday . . . Judgment Day . . . Day of Reckoning . . . The Apocalypse . . . As the man with the sandwich board might say, "The end of the world is nigh." Nobody knows for sure whether it will be an act of God, a natural event, or a man-made disaster that causes the final bell to toll for humankind, but it is surely primed and ready to clang. A Is for Armageddon is your ruthlessly clever and gorgeously hopeless guide to the possible—if not imminent—ultimate destruction of our civilization and planet. From animal flatulence to economic collapse to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—from lethal genetic modification to runaway obesity, super volcanoes, and World War III—the seeds of our doom have been sown . . . and our most dire possible fates have been stunningly illustrated in this edifying and uniquely entertaining volume of inescapable horrors, fatal missteps, and the end of everything.

Over the past century alone, Russia has lived through great achievements and deepest misery; mass heroism and mass crime; over-blown ambition and near-hopeless despair – always emerging with its sovereignty and its fiercely independent spirit intact. In this book, leading Russia scholar Dmitri Trenin accompanies readers on Russia’s rollercoaster journey from revolution to post-war devastation, perestroika to Putin’s stabilization of post-Communist Russia. Explaining the causes and the meaning of the numerous twists and turns in contemporary Russian history, he offers a vivid insider’s view of a country through one of its most trying and often tragic periods. Today, he cautions, Russia stands at a turning point – politically, economically and socially – its situation strikingly reminiscent of the Russian Empire in its final years. For the Russian Federation to avoid a similar demise, it must learn the lessons of its own history.