Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons

by Sarah Scoles Narrated by Teri Schnaubelt

Overview

"I challenge any reader to not feel like one of Katie Heaney's closest girlfriends as she examines, in the most charming, honest, original and amusing way imaginable, how she's managed to never have a date. But don't let the breezy language or topic fool you-this is also a brilliant examination of what it means to be a friend, a girl and a human being. The first guy to take Heaney out will be very lucky; in the meantime, we her readers are the lucky ones."

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Finalist of the Colorado Book Awards

Top Ten Books of 2024—Wall Street Journal

“In this astute assessment of the current situation regarding nuclear weapons, Scoles offers a must-read overview of America’s nuclear arsenal... Everything you ever wanted to know about the current nuclear-weapon landscape.”
 —Kirkus, starred review

“Scoles capably addresses the tension between these camps, providing nuanced portraits of nuclear scientists that find most ‘are neither hawks nor total doves’…Scoles’s measured final analysis occupies a similar middle ground, suggesting that upgrading America’s nuclear weapons probably does discourage other countries from using theirs, even as doing so threatens to “foment a never-ending arms race.” Readers on both sides of the debate will find much to ponder.”
 —Publishers Weekly

"Countdown” is an accessible account of a key, yet underrecognized aspect of America’s nuclear arsenal. ...Her science journalist eyes capture the complexity of the subject while also elucidating it for the average reader."—The SCIF

“Countdown is an amazingly thoughtful piece of reporting about all the practical issues of living with nuclear weapons. Sarah Scoles writes vividly about Los Alamos and the people who work day to day in the weapon labs.”
 —Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and coauthor of American Prometheus

"In the 21st century, most of us tend to comfortably forget that clock has never stopped ticking on human development of nuclear weapons since their deadly war-time beginning. Sarah Scole's Countdown is an indispensable guide to a little seen history and a wonderfully human introduction to the often unheralded scientists who work to keep us safe - so that we can comfortably forget."
 —Deborah Blum, Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the 20th Century

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2023-11-24
Worries about nuclear Armageddon, on the back burner for decades, seem to be reviving.

In early November 2023, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was revoking its ratification of the 1996 global nuclear test ban treaty. In this astute assessment of the current situation regarding nuclear weapons, Scoles, a contributing writer at Popular Science and author of Making Contact and They Are Already Here, offers a must-read overview of America’s nuclear arsenal, emphasizing the technical details of keeping it up to date in the absence of testing, along with efforts at avoiding catastrophic surprises such as accidental explosions, unwanted actions by other nuclear powers, and simple theft of radioactive material for “trafficking or malicious use,” which has occurred more than 300 times during the past 30 years. The author reminds us that by 1992, the year after the Cold War ended, the U.S. had performed 1,054 nuclear tests—and none since. Readers wondering if these complex devices still work after resting in warehouses for three decades may be encouraged to know that government officials are also concerned about their viability. The Departments of Defense and Energy have long supported immense, expensive research programs in arcane areas of nuclear chemistry and physics. As backup, the government will soon resume production of fresh plutonium “pits”—hollow spheres that form the heart of a hydrogen bomb—for the first time since the 1980s. In her interviews, Scoles discovered that few of these scientists, engineers, and bureaucrats are war hawks; instead, they’re a mixture of people who constantly debate whether or not maintaining a nuclear arsenal deters a nuclear war. She also explores the work of antinuclear activists. Older readers who remember this debate from the Cold War years will not feel nostalgic; all readers will learn much vital information, some of it disturbing.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the current nuclear-weapon landscape.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940194398423
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	01/28/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos