Realism Utopia And The Mushroom Cloud

"Two world wars, concentration camps, the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and continued preparations for nuclear war illustrate the modern world's propensity for mass destruction. . . . Yet there have been important signs of resistance to this trend. These have included not only the emergence of mass-based peace and disarmament movements but activist intellectuals grappling with the growing problem posed by mass violence among nation-states. . . . Bess examines the lives and ideas of four of these intellectuals: Leo Szilard of Hungary and (later) the United States, E. P. Thompson of England, Danilo Dolci of Italy, and Louise Weiss of France. . . . Realism, Utopia, and the Mushroom Cloud is a powerful, important scholarly work, casting new light upon some of the great issues of modern times. Readers will learn much from it."—Lawrence S. Wittner, Peace and Change "Bess seeks to understand the way in which the creation of the atomic bomb has changed the social and political situation of humankind. Are we to be held hostage by military forces or can we transform our situation? He describes the lives of four very different activists, each with different views on what causes conflict and how best to address conflict. . . . Overall, this book offers an interesting perspective on life after the atomic bomb. . . . In asking ourselves what the possibilities of our future are, we can turn to these lives for some guidance. . . . This book is informative, provocative, and encourages one to consider carefully how s/he chooses to live."—Erin McKenna, Utopian Studies "These four lives, researched and skillfully presented by historian Michael Bess, make fascinating stories in themselves. They also serve as useful vehicles for examining major cross-currents of Cold War resistance. . . . From Weiss the cynical pragmatist to Szilard the high-level fixer to hompson the social reformer to Dolce the spiritual street organizer, Michael Bess has woven an illuminating tapestry of human efforts to cope with life under the mushroom cloud."—Samuel H. Day Jr., The Progressive

What is a realist response to nuclear weapons? This book is animated by the idea that contemporary attempts to confront the challenge of nuclear weapons and other global security problems would benefit from richer historical foundations. Returning to the decade of deep, thermonuclear anxiety inaugurated in the early 1950s, the authors focus on four creative intellectuals – Günther Anders, John H. Herz, Lewis Mumford and Bertrand Russell – whose work they reclaim under the label of ‘nuclear realism’. This book brings out an important, oppositional and resolutely global strand of political thought that combines realist insights about nuclear weapons with radical proposals for social and political transformation as the only escape from a profoundly endangered planet. Nuclear Realism is a highly original and provocative study that will be of great use to advanced undergraduates, graduates and scholars of political theory, International Relations and Cold War history.

During the 1980s, millions of ordinary individuals around the world mobilized in support of nuclear disarmament. Although U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev were not part of these grassroots movements, they too wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons. Nuclear abolitionism was a diverse and global phenomenon. In Dreams for a Decade, Stephanie L. Freeman draws on newly declassified material from multiple continents to examine nuclear abolitionists' influence on the trajectory of the Cold War's last decade. Freeman reveals that nuclear abolitionism played a significant yet unappreciated role in ending the Cold War. Grassroots and government nuclear abolitionists shifted U.S. and Soviet nuclear arms control paradigms from arms limitation to arms reduction. This paved the way for the reversal of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race, which began with the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. European peace activists also influenced Gorbachev's "common European home" initiative and support for freedom of choice in Europe, which prevented the Soviet leader from intervening to stop the 1989 East European revolutions. These revolutions ripped the fabric of the Iron Curtain, which had divided Europe for more than four decades. Despite their inability to eliminate nuclear weapons, grassroots and government nuclear abolitionists deserve credit for playing a pivotal role in the Cold War's endgame. They also provide a model for enacting dramatic, positive change in a peaceful manner.

Written by an award-winning historian of science and technology, Planet in Peril describes the top four mega-dangers facing humankind – climate change, nukes, pandemics, and artificial intelligence. It outlines the solutions that have been tried, and analyzes why they have thus far fallen short. These four existential dangers present a special kind of challenge that urgently requires planet-level responses, yet today's international institutions have so far failed to meet this need. The book lays out a realistic pathway for gradually modifying the United Nations over the coming century so that it can become more effective at coordinating global solutions to humanity's problems. Neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but pragmatic and constructive, the book explores how to move past ideological polarization and global political fragmentation. Unafraid to take intellectual risks, Planet in Peril sketches a plausible roadmap toward a safer, more democratic future for us all.

Exploration of the top four mega-dangers facing humankind and plots a hopeful path to dealing with them through global governance.

To make sense of the rise and fall, origins and nature, of the 1980s West German peace movement requires work that is part political sociology and part social movement theory building. An analysis of the peace movement's organizations, leadership, strategy, goals, tactics, and mobilization comprises the political sociology part of this study. To un

The 2013 class of Nuclear Scholars, selected from a very competitive applicant pool, contained some of the best and brightest young professionals in the nuclear field. Drawn from graduate programs, the national labs, the civil service, and the U.S. military, these Nuclear Scholars participated in six monthly workshops that focused on a wide range of nuclear topics. These topics included extended deterrence and assurance, stockpile stewardship, nuclear materials security, Iranian and North Korean proliferation, international nonproliferation norms and treaties, missile defense, and nuclear targeting. The program culminated in a final meeting at which the Nuclear Scholars presented their own research to a panel of senior experts. The papers resulting from these presentations are contained in this year’s volume.