THE NUCLEAR AGE

Few historians write with Serhii Plokhy s authority clarity or global vision Essential reading and a marvellous book Peter FrankopanFrom the bestselling author of Chernobyl comes a sweeping history of the geopolitics behind the nuclear arms race from the first atomic bomb to todayOn 16 July 1945 the Nuclear Age began with the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the words of J Robert Oppenheimer Now I am become Death the Destroyer of Worlds While the threat of mutually assured destruction kept a lid on a simmering and tense geopolitical landscape events like the Chernobyl disaster and near misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis showed that total destruction was only ever one malfunction mistake or miscommunication away Now as governments re arm their nuclear arsenals treaties designed to limit the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons fall away and nuclear weapons come increasingly within reach of non state actors we are on the brink of a renaissance of the nuclear industry In The Nuclear Age acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy paints an intricate picture of a world governed by fear From the first artificial splitting of the atom in 1917 and the race to create the first atomic bomb in World War II through the fraught arms race of the Cold War t