'Few historians write with Serhii Plokhy's authority clarity or global vision... Essential
reading and a marvellous book' Peter Frankopan From the bestselling author of Chernobyl comes
a sweeping history of the geopolitics behind the nuclear arms race from the first atomic bomb
to today On 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 to the imperialism neo-colonial motivation and wars being waged today the
threat posed by nuclear weapons is as pertinent as ever. As he examines the motivations of key
players Plokhy confronts the crucial question of our age: what can we learn from the first
nuclear arms race that can help us to stop the new one?
