The Unfinished Twentieth Century: The Crisis of Weapons of Mass Destruction

In this work, Jonathan Schell, the author of The Fate of the Earth, proposes that the defining characteristic of the twentieth century was the uncontrolled acceleration of humankind’s capacity for self-destruction, manifested in ‘policies of extermination’, which culminated in the construction of the species-threatening nuclear arsenals of the Cold War.”

Schell examines the legacy this leaves for the new millennium: the more than 30,000 nuclear weapons that remain in existence, the crisis of...