A Short History of Nuclear Folly A Short History of Nuclear Folly

A Short History of Nuclear Folly

Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-ups

    • 4.5 • 2 Ratings
    • $13.99
    • $13.99

Publisher Description

In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, a blackly sardonic people’s history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the hushed-up and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with catastrophe

Rudolph Herzog, the acclaimed author of Dead Funny, presents a devastating account of history’s most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From the rarely-discussed nightmare of “Broken Arrows” (40 nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War) to “Operation Plowshare” (a proposal to use nuclear bombs for large engineering projects, such as a the construction of a second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs), Herzog focuses in on long-forgotten nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster.

In an unprecedented people’s history, Herzog digs deep into archives, interviews nuclear scientists, and collects dozens of rare photos. He explores the “accidental” drop of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train conductor’s home, the implanting of plutonium into patients’ hearts, and the invention of wild tactical nukes, including weapons designed to kill enemy astronauts.

Told in a riveting narrative voice, Herzog—the son of filmmaker Werner Herzog—also draws on childhood memories of the final period of the Cold War in Germany, the country once seen as the nuclear battleground for NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, and discusses evidence that Nazi scientists knew how to make atomic weaponry . . . and chose not to.

GENRE
History
RELEASED
2013
April 30
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
256
Pages
PUBLISHER
Melville House
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
9.1
MB

Customer Reviews

36RED ,

A Short History of Nuclear Folly

This outstanding, fast-paced work on general sloppiness in the broad areas of nuclear technology is a must-read for Baby Boomers who grew up in the "Duck & Cover" days. It is amazing to reflect upon all of the TRUE stories in this book, involving everything from reactors, weapons, and even medical devices, and realize the ever-present risk of similar situations all around us to this day. My favorite parts were those concerning the disposition of a South American medical scanning device, and the frightening story of a "broken arrow" over the Carolinas, which amazingly tripped off six of seven detonation sequence triggers before burying itself in a small-town backyard. This is a great piece of research!

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