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The Nuclear Age
An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival
Brief Description
From the best-selling 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....
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The Nuclear Age
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Description
From the best-selling 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?
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781802060607
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 28 May 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 26.0mm
Width: 128.0mm
Height: 217.0mm
Weight: 306g
Pages: 432
About the Author
Serhii Plokhy is the author of Chernobyl- History of a Tragedy, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Pushkin House Book Prize, and the New York Times bestseller The Gates of Europe. His many acclaimed books, including The Russo-Ukrainian War, Nuclear Folly and Atoms and Ashes, have been translated into over a dozen languages. He is Professor of History at Harvard University where he also serves as Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
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