Arsenals of Folly; The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race

London: Simon and Schuster, 2008. First U.K. Edition, First Printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 386 Pages. [10], 386, [4] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. SCARCE U.K. First Edition/First printing. Richard Lee Rhodes (born July 4, 1937) is an American historian, journalist and author of both fiction and non-fiction. Rhodes went on to publish 23 books and numerous articles for national magazines; his best-known work, The Making of the Atomic Bomb earned Rhodes the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards. It is a narrative of the history of the people and events during World War II from the discoveries leading to the science of nuclear fission in the 1930s, through the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Praised by both historians and former Los Alamos weapon scientists alike, the book is considered a general authority on early nuclear weapons history, as well as the development of modern physics in general, during the first half of the 20th century. This is the story of the postwar superpower arms race, which peaked during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade when the United States and the Soviet Union came within minutes of nuclear war. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a riveting account of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. In the Reagan-Gorbachev era, the United States and the Soviet Union came within minutes of nuclear war, until Gorbachev boldly launched a campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, setting the stage for the 1986 Reykjavik summit and the incredible events that followed. In this thrilling, authoritative narrative, Richard Rhodes draws on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants and a wealth of new documentation to unravel the compelling, shocking story behind this monumental time in human history—its beginnings, its nearly chilling consequences, and its effects on global politics today. Derived from a Publishers Weekly article: This is the third volume in a history of nuclear weaponry that began with the award-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb , but despite its subtitle, this installment might also be described as a chronicle of the unmaking of the arms race. Paralleling the careers of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, Rhodes builds up to a detailed account of the 1986 Reykjavik summit, at which the two leaders—both eager to achieve peace—nearly came to an agreement on eliminating their nuclear arsenals, before the accord, he says, was sabotaged by then-assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle. Far from keeping America strong, decades of nuclear arms production have seriously eroded the nation's domestic infrastructure and diminished its citizens' quality of life, he believes. The clarity of the historical record reinforces Rhodes's fiercely held political convictions, ensuring widespread attention as he returns to this critically important subject.