The Bomb, Fred Kaplan
The Bomb, Fred Kaplan
4 Rating(s)
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The Bomb
Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War

Author: Fred Kaplan

Narrator: Edward Bauer

Unabridged: 11 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/28/2020


Synopsis

From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump.

Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today.

Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.

About Fred Kaplan

Fred Kaplan is the national-security columnist for Slate and the author of five previous books, Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber WarThe Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestseller), 1959, Daydream Believers, and The Wizards of Armageddon. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Brooke Gladstone.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Eric_W

I read Kaplan's Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War and discovered it to be a very lucid explanation of the technological challenges faced by the security departments around the world. So naturally, I was anxious to check out his most recent book, courtesy Net Galley, for which I am grat......more

Goodreads review by Sajith

Opening of the nuclear age with the ruthless bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought in a new dimension in warfare. The unacceptable level of devastation in infrastructure and human lives at first presented a scenario to presidents and generals that immensely favoured those who possessed the weapo......more

Goodreads review by Sabrina

The title is misleading. While there is a good bit of information here of interest you have to work to pick it out of this bland, repetitive text. Kudos to the author though for putting in the work and doing a hell of a research job. This book is very dry and at times reads like a textbook. First off......more

Goodreads review by John

Starts off with a little bit of a dry history lesson, but that turns out to be necessary to find context. Made me re-examine the role of Gen Curtis LeMay as even more of a ghoulish figure who cares nothing for civilian lives. His legacy of tactical global destruction lived decades after he left the......more

Goodreads review by Daryll

Interesting, fearsome, and a full on anxiety creator.......more