How to prevent the apocalypse

Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World by Tad Daley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The novel I'm working on right now is about a nuclear terror attack in Washington, DC and the people who are trying to prevent it from happening. I started on this project more than ten years ago, well before The Life and Opinions of the Housecat Hastings. I put it down for a while because it's been so difficult to write, both for technical (how to structure this thing?) and emotional (you can only read so much about nuclear war) reasons.

So I've been reading about nuclear war and nuclear weapons policy a fair amount lately. It's not the focus of my book, but it's key to the outcome. Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World resonated with me the most of any that I've picked up so far. What's most striking about reading it now, years after it was written, is how much of Daley's perspective still applies in 2017. He explains why countries like Iran and North Korea feel they need nuclear weapons as a deterrent. These explanations are as true today as they were then. Daley also drives home how misguided and foolish foreign policy can be when you don't pause to understand why the actors are acting the way they are. After all this time, you've got to wonder why our approach remains what it is.

What I liked most about this book, though, is how Daley makes the case for global nuclear disarmament and charts a realistic path for how to get there. This is ambitious, and most people in this dark, cynical time might be inclined to dismiss it outright. But the great achievement of this book is that this idealistic vision remains grounded in reality. We can't let go of this hope. We've got to believe that cooler, more visionary minds will eventually prevail. The alternative is just too horrific to think about.

I highly recommend this book. Daley, Director of the Project on Abolishing War at the Center for War/Peace Studies, is now working on another book. You can read more about them at http://www.cwps.org.



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