Scan barcode
gregbrown's review
4.0
Pretty stunning look at the devastation that would be wrought by a nuclear holocaust. You can see why it was such an immediate sensation on release.
Roughly divided into three sections, the first—on the physical destruction due to nuclear weapons—is the best and scariest depiction of those events I've read, both finely-written and scarily-detailed. The middle section—where he impresses on the larger consequences of a human extinction—is probably twice as long as it needs to be, almost feeling like he's doing donuts in the parking lot. But it is pretty convincing how nuclear annihilation, even if it doesn't feel imminent in the same way as in crises like the Cuban Missile Crisis, is still necessarily just moments away and can't help but infect the rest of life with a subterranean dread and sickness.
The last chapter harkens back to some of the immediate-post-WWII literature I've read, except informed by the subsequent 3+ decades of Cold War. Schell convincingly argues that in order to destroy the threat of nuclear weapons, we must strike at the root of national sovereignty that underlies the mutual annihilation. While the threat of war has been used to ensure national sovereignty for centuries, nuclear arms have irreversibly placed ultimate victory outside of the realm of possibility.
In much of his discussion about the societal and psychological effects of looming annihilation, it's unreal how easily and accurately it transposes onto our modern feelings of doom due to climate change.
Roughly divided into three sections, the first—on the physical destruction due to nuclear weapons—is the best and scariest depiction of those events I've read, both finely-written and scarily-detailed. The middle section—where he impresses on the larger consequences of a human extinction—is probably twice as long as it needs to be, almost feeling like he's doing donuts in the parking lot. But it is pretty convincing how nuclear annihilation, even if it doesn't feel imminent in the same way as in crises like the Cuban Missile Crisis, is still necessarily just moments away and can't help but infect the rest of life with a subterranean dread and sickness.
The last chapter harkens back to some of the immediate-post-WWII literature I've read, except informed by the subsequent 3+ decades of Cold War. Schell convincingly argues that in order to destroy the threat of nuclear weapons, we must strike at the root of national sovereignty that underlies the mutual annihilation. While the threat of war has been used to ensure national sovereignty for centuries, nuclear arms have irreversibly placed ultimate victory outside of the realm of possibility.
In much of his discussion about the societal and psychological effects of looming annihilation, it's unreal how easily and accurately it transposes onto our modern feelings of doom due to climate change.
More...