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.
