Nuclear War

A Scenario

De: Annie Jacobsen

Narrado por: Annie Jacobsen

The INSTANT New York Times bestseller

Instant Los Angeles Times bestseller

Finalist, Dayton Literary Peace Prize

One of NPR's Books We Love

One of Newsweek Staffers' Favorite Books of the Year

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize

“In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail…Terrifying.”—Wall Street Journal

There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States.

Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.

Apocalyptic

This book, written by Annie Jacobsen (read by Sarah Conner), was amazing. Definitely, add this to your library.
One notion this book disabused me of, was the notion of control. In this scenario, we have no control. No choice but to let the chips (or the buildings and civilizations) fall where they may. But, what do we do in the meantime? How do we live? I’ll answer that with a quote by C.S. Lewis on this very topic.

“In a way, we think a great deal to much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.”

Great book, but read waaayyy to slow.

Fascinatingly terrifying. Listen to it at 1.2x speed. She just reads it way too slow.

Terrifying but plausible

This isn’t a normal “what if” book. It’s loaded with facts and insights from people in the know that make the scenario quite realistic and believable.
A word of caution though…it’s not a book you can “unhear”. It will change your perspective on the future of humanity. That said, if everyone better understood the impacts and consequences of a nuclear exchange and EMP, perhaps we’d live in a safer world.
I thank the author for writing this!

We have taken our eye off the ball

Too many of us have forgotten how dangerous the world is today. Yes, there is terrorism. But short of a catastrophic meteor strike, NOTHING will impact the lives of every human more than nuclear war. This isn’t just a book. To me, this is a call to action. It would be way too easy for the scenario described or something similar to happen. Especially when we have world leaders openly threatening nuclear strikes.

My stomach hasn’t been the same since I started

This is, by far, the most well-researched and presented plausible Armageddon stories. Jacobsen is eminently qualified to present such a scenario. It’s absolutely terrifying. Not in the Stephen King horror type of narrative, but rather in its gut wrenching detail. DO NOT read this if you are at all sensitive - you’ve been warned. I’ve read dozens of similar books and nothing can even remotely hold a candle to Nuclear War. It should be required reading for all military leaders, political leaders, and any president or presidential candidate.