What do you think?
Rate this book
Almighty: Courage, Resistance, and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age
On a tranquil summer night in July 2012, a trio of peace activists infiltrated the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Nicknamed the "Fort Knox of Uranium," Y-12 was reputedly one of the most secure nuclear weapons facilities in the world, a bastion of warhead parts that harbored hundreds of metric tons of highly-enriched uranium--enough to power thousands of nuclear bombs. The activists--a house painter, a Vietnam veteran, and an eighty-two-year-old Catholic nun--penetrated the complex's exterior with alarming ease; their strongest tools were two pairs of bolt cutters and three hammers. Once inside, the pacifists hung freshly spray-painted protest banners and streaked the complex's white walls with six baby bottles' worth of human blood. Then they waited to be arrested. With the symbolic break-in, the Plowshares activists had hoped to draw attention to a costly military-industrial complex that stockpiled deadly nukes and drones. But they also triggered a political, legal, and moral firestorm when they defeated a multimillion-dollar security system. What if they had been terrorists with a deadly motive? Why does the United States continue to possess such large amounts of nuclear weaponry in the first place? And above all, are we safe? In Almighty, Washington Post reporter Dan Zak explores these questions by reexamining America's love-hate relationship with the bomb, from the race to achieve atomic power before the Nazis did to the solemn seventieth anniversary of Hiroshima. At a time of concern about proliferation in such nations as Iran and North Korea, the US arsenal is plagued by its own security problems. This life-or-death quandary is unraveled in Zak's eye-opening account, with a cast that includes the biophysicist who first educated the public on atomic energy, the prophet who predicted the creation of Oak Ridge, the generations of activists propelled into resistance by their faith, and the Washington bureaucrats and diplomats who are trying to keep the world safe.Part historical adventure, part courtroom drama, part moral thriller, Almighty reshapes the accepted narratives surrounding nuclear weapons and shows that our greatest modern-day threat remains a power we discovered long ago.
11 pages, Audio CD
Published July 12, 2016
30 people are currently reading
669 people want to read
About the author
Dan Zak
2 books19 followersDan Zak is a reporter for The Washington Post. He has written a wide range of news stories, narratives and profiles while on local, national and foreign assignments. His reporting has taken him to the Academy Awards, to seven provinces in Iraq, to the East and West wings of the White House, to the Marshall Islands, to the United Nations, and to chairs opposite Robert Gates, John Kasich, Megyn Kelly, David Letterman and Meryl Streep. His book “ALMIGHTY: Courage, Resistance and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age” is out July 12.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
July 12, 2016
Very proud of my colleague Dan Zak's book, "Almighty," which can most easily be described as the story of how three anti-nuke activists managed to break in to the Oak Ridge facility in 2012 (and the consequences of that action). On a much deeper and intelligently reported level, this is a book about how we've managed to essentially ignore and live with the dreadful fact of nuclear weapons in our lives, especially since the supposed end of the Cold War. There are facts and coincidences in this narrative that are at once poetic and shocking in their symmetry and meaning, told by just the right writer for the job. "Almighty" is neither a peacenik harangue nor a condemnation of idealistic activism; it is a soulful, serious portrait of a world that has put its biggest threat on the back burner, perhaps because the alternative is just too horrible to imagine.
July 27, 2016
What a tremendous book. I read it because I enjoy Dan Zak's work in the Washington Post, certainly including the article that the book is based on. The narrative thread is compelling and fascinating. For such a complex topic, this book is surprisingly easy to read. The personal stories are so interesting and you'll feel smarter after you read it. Highly recommend!
July 27, 2016
This book is expertly written and tells a powerful, riveting story that every American should read. It was meticulously researched and the author writes with insight and passion. Highly recommended!
December 22, 2024
Awesome book!
I accidentally slimed my library copy with green paint. Wish me luck color matching it lol
I accidentally slimed my library copy with green paint. Wish me luck color matching it lol
August 21, 2016
Although I wouldn't consider anything a spoiler to anyone with access to Wikipedia, I will defer to the reader's judgement of whether this contains spoilers.
The book is meticulously researched, with an appendix of footnotes (although not with footnotes for each reference) and the author identifies with the subjects of the book, while attempting an even handed analysis. The book is thoughtful and leaves much to the reader, and in so doing takes the potential of sermon into a more balanced reading.
The author's coverage of the break in at Y-12 is the core of the book, and even as the other pieces, the bombings of the weapons yielded from the site and the testing thereafter in the Marshall islands, Y-12 has a weight of perhaps 2/3 to the book. The author is skillful at blending in the depth of the religious devotion of the protestors, and yet is respectful of those who have other beliefs. I'm less impressed with the guilt of the protestor at the guard who lost his job and now subsists on far more meager pay and a debilitating illness; guilt is not a balm on its own, it is intended to direct you to a solution, to something better.
On occasion I thought it a weakness in the book, that the author has an identification with the protestors that occasionally bleeds through the narrative. However this identification does provide the reader with interpretation of underlying justifications that the protestors do not provide on their own, and in at least one case in the trial do harm their own case; moral absolutism in one protestor's case cannot have helped his case in the view of the jury.
The author having taken the time (and cost, given the remoteness) to travel to the more recent test sites in the Marshall Islands is to his and the book's credit. It does feel almost disconnected, given the deep focus on the protesters at Y-12, but he is deft in weaving it into the story even of the protestors do not make the link themselves. It is interesting that he doesn't bring up the French tests in the 1990s, that led to massive economic boycotts of France, but with the overwhelming American domestic focus would perhaps be out of the scope. That the UK's own sharing of location and co-operation with all these tests (having a limited option list to test its own weapons the UK shared location and data from all of the tests performed in the US) goes unmentioned is an oversight that is more puzzling.
The author delves into the fraught and often impossibility of serving two masters as DOE and the government attempts with contractors. The points of legislation and pork are not skipped over and the sausage making involved do not escape his notice.
Given that this is clearly a a labor of love by the author I am more restrained in my critique than some of the residents of Japan to some of the oddities in the book. The bombing of Hiroshima recognizes only the presence of Japanese citizens, even though a quarter of those who died were Korean, most of whom who were slave labourers, and whose lack of integration into modern Japan remains a recognized injustice by most except the Japanese far right. This is easily remedied in any following printing, and I hope it will be.
I look forward to more from this author.
The book is meticulously researched, with an appendix of footnotes (although not with footnotes for each reference) and the author identifies with the subjects of the book, while attempting an even handed analysis. The book is thoughtful and leaves much to the reader, and in so doing takes the potential of sermon into a more balanced reading.
The author's coverage of the break in at Y-12 is the core of the book, and even as the other pieces, the bombings of the weapons yielded from the site and the testing thereafter in the Marshall islands, Y-12 has a weight of perhaps 2/3 to the book. The author is skillful at blending in the depth of the religious devotion of the protestors, and yet is respectful of those who have other beliefs. I'm less impressed with the guilt of the protestor at the guard who lost his job and now subsists on far more meager pay and a debilitating illness; guilt is not a balm on its own, it is intended to direct you to a solution, to something better.
On occasion I thought it a weakness in the book, that the author has an identification with the protestors that occasionally bleeds through the narrative. However this identification does provide the reader with interpretation of underlying justifications that the protestors do not provide on their own, and in at least one case in the trial do harm their own case; moral absolutism in one protestor's case cannot have helped his case in the view of the jury.
The author having taken the time (and cost, given the remoteness) to travel to the more recent test sites in the Marshall Islands is to his and the book's credit. It does feel almost disconnected, given the deep focus on the protesters at Y-12, but he is deft in weaving it into the story even of the protestors do not make the link themselves. It is interesting that he doesn't bring up the French tests in the 1990s, that led to massive economic boycotts of France, but with the overwhelming American domestic focus would perhaps be out of the scope. That the UK's own sharing of location and co-operation with all these tests (having a limited option list to test its own weapons the UK shared location and data from all of the tests performed in the US) goes unmentioned is an oversight that is more puzzling.
The author delves into the fraught and often impossibility of serving two masters as DOE and the government attempts with contractors. The points of legislation and pork are not skipped over and the sausage making involved do not escape his notice.
Given that this is clearly a a labor of love by the author I am more restrained in my critique than some of the residents of Japan to some of the oddities in the book. The bombing of Hiroshima recognizes only the presence of Japanese citizens, even though a quarter of those who died were Korean, most of whom who were slave labourers, and whose lack of integration into modern Japan remains a recognized injustice by most except the Japanese far right. This is easily remedied in any following printing, and I hope it will be.
I look forward to more from this author.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 19, 2016
In 2012 three senior citizens broke into the foremost maker of enriched uranium in the United States. Broke in is really taking it too far. They kind of just walked in, painted some messages in blood, then waited to get arrested. And oh, one of them was a nun. I really didn't need a reminder that we are always seconds away from being obliterated but this book is that reminder. There are still 17,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. And they are all many many times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan. Almighty is about that, the continuing protests against those weapons and the machine that keeps the nuclear bomb industry going. I would actually like to attend some of the pro nuke conferences. At Nukefest they have a coffee drinks called GO BALLISTIC and THERMONUCLEAR...delicious. Obama got his Nobel Peace prize for a speech he made to rid the earth of these bombs. But instead as he leaves office we are spending untold amounts to modernize the bombs and facilities to keep them at the ready through 2080. There are often comments that he should give his Peace Prize back. I don't think he will. Everyone should read this book to remind them of what we all forget about... One of the things they talk about after Hiroshima is the survivors who walked around holding their own eyeballs in their hands because their eyeballs where blown out of their heads. That will make your next weekend in NY or DC somewhat less fun.
September 9, 2022
This was a phenomenal read, and incredibly illuminating. It reads like gripping fiction, but of course the terrifying part is that it's non-fiction. I've always been interested in the nuclear program, but this book had astounding information on the scope of America's program both in terms of the financial cost and the human cost. Anchored by interesting characters, Almighty is funny, poignant, informational, and beautifully written. It's a good reminder that nuclear weapons remain our number one existential threat, despite the fact that they're rarely discussed in the news cycle. And while I didn't need any convincing about the dangers of America’s nuclear program, the book did change my mind about something unexpected: Catholics! I'd never heard of the Catholic Workers movement and was so riveted and energized by their work. Highly recommend!
August 11, 2018
Statement of Disclosure: I was the author’s English teacher in both the eleventh and twelfth grades. He was brilliant then, and he’s only gotten better with age and experience.
I knew Dan was working on this book, and when the copy I’d ordered arrived in the mail, it had been a long, hot day of running errands, but with hungry cat twining themselves around my ankles and groceries melting on the counter, I nevertheless had to open the package and read the first paragraph…
Three pages later, I was completely enthralled, cats, groceries, and all forgotten in the desire to just keep reading.
Zak’s breadth of knowledge on the subject of the no nukes movement is matched only by his exceptional humanity in conveying the little details of the three lives around whom the book is centered. It is easy enough to portray an octogenarian nun, a Vietnam War veteran, and a homeless man in a sympathetic light, but it might be easier still to wander into bathos or to paint within the lines of stereotypes of Catholic Christian activists. It might also be easy to paint the military-industrial complex and the US government as villainously complicit in perpetuating the engines of annihilation.
Dan Zak does not take the easy road in either—or any—case.
This is a meticulously detailed, compassionate, human, and humane portrayal of a literal life-or-death struggle, but Zak maintains rigorous balance in giving the devil his or her due.
In other words, anyone can say, obviously, that nuclear weapons are bad, but that is a facile and simplistic statement that deserves the careful, thoughtful unpacking that Zak gives it.
For as careful and thoughtful as Zak is, and for as often as he strives to bring to light the myriad complexities of the nuclear proliferation issue, his clever, clean prose often betrays his own humanity, his sense of the moral issues with which he challenges the reader to wrestle. There are word choices that made me snort, chuckle, and cackle in an I-see-what-you-did-there fashion. And, for as often as I was horrified by the relentless facts Zak is unflinching in laying out for the reader, I was also pleasantly surprised by both his turn of phrase and the minutiae of character and local color, for example, that those turns of phrase revealed.
I learned an enormous amount of terrifying, morally outrageous information in Zak’s book, and I also both laughed out loud and cried more than once. What more can a person ask for in a nonfiction book about the end of the world as we know it?
N.B.: This book came out in 2016. I began reading it at once, set it aside for the start of the new school year, and resumed it after the 2016 election. Soon enough, real life as it was happening was too infuriating for me to add yet more infuriation to my daily dose of depression, so I set the book aside waiting for happier days. Those days have not yet arrived, but as I assigned Dan’s book as a choice for my senior students’ summer reading, I figured I should finish it. I’m glad that I did, but it was no easier to carry this additional, horrifying burden of knowledge now than it was in December 2016.
I knew Dan was working on this book, and when the copy I’d ordered arrived in the mail, it had been a long, hot day of running errands, but with hungry cat twining themselves around my ankles and groceries melting on the counter, I nevertheless had to open the package and read the first paragraph…
Three pages later, I was completely enthralled, cats, groceries, and all forgotten in the desire to just keep reading.
Zak’s breadth of knowledge on the subject of the no nukes movement is matched only by his exceptional humanity in conveying the little details of the three lives around whom the book is centered. It is easy enough to portray an octogenarian nun, a Vietnam War veteran, and a homeless man in a sympathetic light, but it might be easier still to wander into bathos or to paint within the lines of stereotypes of Catholic Christian activists. It might also be easy to paint the military-industrial complex and the US government as villainously complicit in perpetuating the engines of annihilation.
Dan Zak does not take the easy road in either—or any—case.
This is a meticulously detailed, compassionate, human, and humane portrayal of a literal life-or-death struggle, but Zak maintains rigorous balance in giving the devil his or her due.
In other words, anyone can say, obviously, that nuclear weapons are bad, but that is a facile and simplistic statement that deserves the careful, thoughtful unpacking that Zak gives it.
For as careful and thoughtful as Zak is, and for as often as he strives to bring to light the myriad complexities of the nuclear proliferation issue, his clever, clean prose often betrays his own humanity, his sense of the moral issues with which he challenges the reader to wrestle. There are word choices that made me snort, chuckle, and cackle in an I-see-what-you-did-there fashion. And, for as often as I was horrified by the relentless facts Zak is unflinching in laying out for the reader, I was also pleasantly surprised by both his turn of phrase and the minutiae of character and local color, for example, that those turns of phrase revealed.
I learned an enormous amount of terrifying, morally outrageous information in Zak’s book, and I also both laughed out loud and cried more than once. What more can a person ask for in a nonfiction book about the end of the world as we know it?
N.B.: This book came out in 2016. I began reading it at once, set it aside for the start of the new school year, and resumed it after the 2016 election. Soon enough, real life as it was happening was too infuriating for me to add yet more infuriation to my daily dose of depression, so I set the book aside waiting for happier days. Those days have not yet arrived, but as I assigned Dan’s book as a choice for my senior students’ summer reading, I figured I should finish it. I’m glad that I did, but it was no easier to carry this additional, horrifying burden of knowledge now than it was in December 2016.
January 10, 2019
I admit it. The only reason I even picked this book up is because Dan Zak tweeted something once (I can't even recall what it was) that made me think, "Wow. That was a really good tweet. I wonder what this guy does for a living." As it turns out, he reports and writes for a living for my newspaper. And then I learned that there was a whole book of his reporting and writing on a subject about which I know very little, and I decided I needed to read it.
It's not just illuminating and thorough; it's actually good. Zak treats the topic with the sobriety it deserves, and profiles the protesters and the morality behind their actions without either lionizing or patronizing them and their faith, which is an easy trap to fall into this day and age, but Zak neatly avoids.
I actually found myself distressed many times when having to face facts regarding the United States' complicity in forestalling disarmament. It's an uncomfortable truth, but one that isn't glossed over. I also appreciated how far-reaching the book is, not only discussing the protesters, their actions, and the fallout (ugh, apropos?), but also the history, science, and after-effects of nuclear weapons development.
Read Dan Zak's tweets, but also read his WaPo articles, and read this book.
It's not just illuminating and thorough; it's actually good. Zak treats the topic with the sobriety it deserves, and profiles the protesters and the morality behind their actions without either lionizing or patronizing them and their faith, which is an easy trap to fall into this day and age, but Zak neatly avoids.
I actually found myself distressed many times when having to face facts regarding the United States' complicity in forestalling disarmament. It's an uncomfortable truth, but one that isn't glossed over. I also appreciated how far-reaching the book is, not only discussing the protesters, their actions, and the fallout (ugh, apropos?), but also the history, science, and after-effects of nuclear weapons development.
Read Dan Zak's tweets, but also read his WaPo articles, and read this book.
May 22, 2020
The book started out kind of slow for me and I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I don't like nuclear weapons but I mean, who would? Come to find out a lot of people like nuclear weapons and they spend a lot of time and money to protect those weapons from the American public.
Each chapter is broke down into three parts usually. There is the basic story line, then there is a brief biographical sketch of one the characters in the story, and then there is the policy planning going on in Washington D.C. (the boring part, at first). The story is about an 82 year old Catholic sister, a 62 year old Vietnam veteran, and a 57 year old house painter who broke into a nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, TN. They did a small amount of damage with spray paint, blood, and a hammer. They were arrested and tried.
I ended up really liking this book. I still don't like nuclear weapons and now would like them to go away but have no idea how to achieve that. Although my alternate plan is to give every nation on earth a nuclear warhead of the same strength and then... wait.
Each chapter is broke down into three parts usually. There is the basic story line, then there is a brief biographical sketch of one the characters in the story, and then there is the policy planning going on in Washington D.C. (the boring part, at first). The story is about an 82 year old Catholic sister, a 62 year old Vietnam veteran, and a 57 year old house painter who broke into a nuclear facility in Oak Ridge, TN. They did a small amount of damage with spray paint, blood, and a hammer. They were arrested and tried.
I ended up really liking this book. I still don't like nuclear weapons and now would like them to go away but have no idea how to achieve that. Although my alternate plan is to give every nation on earth a nuclear warhead of the same strength and then... wait.
March 27, 2019
4.5 stars, not 4. Dan Zak has long been one of my favorite journalists, so I looked forward to reading this. I won't say I was *excited* to read it because it deals with some very heavy and heady themes, but I knew that they would be in good hands with Zak's writing. And they were - it took me several months to finish this once I started it, but only because I wanted to read it carefully to fully absorb the horrors Zak describes. His writing is clear and very thoroughly explains, without dumbing down, the current perilous state of our nuclear world, and he masterfully interweaves the narratives of the various people involved without letting the reader forget about any one of them for too long. This is a horrifying book, in a good way, and one that I wish was required reading for pretty much everyone.
August 3, 2017
I very much enjoyed how this book illuminated the struggle of peace activists, and especially learning about the struggle of Marshall Islands citizens to survive in this archipelago where some of our largest nuclear weapons were tested.
September 10, 2018
Some great writing here as Dan Zak goes from heartfelt coverage of anti-nuclear activists to dry history to tense treaty negotiations with a deft pen. I don't do much non-fiction, but this is among my favorites. Scary but hopeful at the same time.
April 7, 2023
It delivered on the story it set out to relay: a segment of the American anti-nuclear force. The geopolitics are also good. It's a bit too bad that I wasn't fully hooked by the main story - the actions of three protesters - but I can see its appeal.
June 4, 2017
A narrative nonfiction thriller, a humanitarian plea for action, and a primer on nuclear proliferation all bundled together in one engrossing, enlightening volume.
January 6, 2018
Surprising. Much different than I expected in terms of the narrative. A touch disjointed toward the very end
December 6, 2017
Excellent book. Very informative inside of great story telling.
March 4, 2018
Anti-nuclear activism is something that’s hard for most people to take seriously. Zak gives it the stakes and weight it deserves.
June 13, 2019
One of the best books I’ve read about Oak Ridge and the long term effects of its role in the Manhattan Project. Loved it.
August 26, 2019
Stunningly researched, fast-paced look at American nuclear proliferation past and present told through a collection of narratives, one just as fascinating as the next.
March 31, 2022
I liked this book. An important read in these times.
September 23, 2022
Dry and slow at times, but important to be writing about. I wish it was a bit more hopeful, or clear about what could be done
Read
June 11, 2025Signed first
March 24, 2017
My former student, now a reporter for The Washington Post, wrote this!!!
September 26, 2016
Please, for the love of our species, read Almighty.
Please wake up and remember the existential threat we created with nuclear weapons. These bombs roam the oceans on submarines and hide in mountainsides, perpetually ready to strike. These bombs do not discriminate, killing all who lie in their path, doctors, children and mothers. Please scream that trillions of dollars are thrown away to just maintain our American stockpile, forgetting Eisenhower’s warning: “Every dollar that is spent on armaments is a theft from the poor”
How did we get here? How have we gotten saddled with this deadly and expensive inheritance? As Americans, even though the War Department knew that Japan was ready to surrender, we used these weapons to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The federal spending on nuclear weapons is higher than at any point in history and to simply modernize these weapons and facilities will cost more than $1 trillion through 2040. Why are there no plans to end nuclear stockpiles and no actions to reduce the taxpayer costs? And in an age where politicians scream about global terrorism and national security, how was an 82-year old nun, Sister Rice, and her two elderly companions able to break into America’s largest highly enriched uranium facility and remain undetected for hours?
Almighty dives to deep to answer these questions, threading 70+ years of nuclear history and science with achingly beautiful prose around the story of a few humans struggling to sound an alarm against this menace and the bumbling bureaucracy that thoughtless perpetuates it. The backstory of Sister Rice provides a both a moral compass and a personal narrative for this history, as she grew up near Columbia University while the Manhattan Project percolated in the whispers of her neighbors.
The book takes on the lie that we’ve all been fed, that nuclear weapons make us safer. But our aging nuclear weapons and facilities have been leaking poisons into our soils. The radiation levels near nuclear facilities in the US, like the Rocky Flats, have tested higher than in Nagasaki after Fat Man was detonated. The Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands remains uninhabitable sixty years after the US dropped a bomb 1,000 times as powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, poisoning American military men and the Marshallese nearby.
Zak exposes the nuclear weapons industry and its frustratingly sloppy privatization. Zak uses the fate of Kirk Garland, the security officer who found the three peaceful protestors, to illustrate the corruption that is intrinsic here. Garland was sacrificed as the scapegoat for the entire facility's broken security system. But the privatization trudges on with little oversight for the few companies who are tasked with storing and securing our nuclear facilities. For instance contractors constructing a new storage building discovered seven years into the design process that the ceilings needed to be 13 feet higher to fit the proper equipment. This mistake added $540 million to the design cost alone, almost doubling the initial cost for the entire project. We are paying for this system and for terrible mistakes it makes.
Please. Please read Almighty. We all need to meditate on what horrors we can create and how our bureaucratic chaos breeds illogical policies and downright destruction.
Please wake up and remember the existential threat we created with nuclear weapons. These bombs roam the oceans on submarines and hide in mountainsides, perpetually ready to strike. These bombs do not discriminate, killing all who lie in their path, doctors, children and mothers. Please scream that trillions of dollars are thrown away to just maintain our American stockpile, forgetting Eisenhower’s warning: “Every dollar that is spent on armaments is a theft from the poor”
How did we get here? How have we gotten saddled with this deadly and expensive inheritance? As Americans, even though the War Department knew that Japan was ready to surrender, we used these weapons to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. The federal spending on nuclear weapons is higher than at any point in history and to simply modernize these weapons and facilities will cost more than $1 trillion through 2040. Why are there no plans to end nuclear stockpiles and no actions to reduce the taxpayer costs? And in an age where politicians scream about global terrorism and national security, how was an 82-year old nun, Sister Rice, and her two elderly companions able to break into America’s largest highly enriched uranium facility and remain undetected for hours?
Almighty dives to deep to answer these questions, threading 70+ years of nuclear history and science with achingly beautiful prose around the story of a few humans struggling to sound an alarm against this menace and the bumbling bureaucracy that thoughtless perpetuates it. The backstory of Sister Rice provides a both a moral compass and a personal narrative for this history, as she grew up near Columbia University while the Manhattan Project percolated in the whispers of her neighbors.
The book takes on the lie that we’ve all been fed, that nuclear weapons make us safer. But our aging nuclear weapons and facilities have been leaking poisons into our soils. The radiation levels near nuclear facilities in the US, like the Rocky Flats, have tested higher than in Nagasaki after Fat Man was detonated. The Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands remains uninhabitable sixty years after the US dropped a bomb 1,000 times as powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, poisoning American military men and the Marshallese nearby.
Zak exposes the nuclear weapons industry and its frustratingly sloppy privatization. Zak uses the fate of Kirk Garland, the security officer who found the three peaceful protestors, to illustrate the corruption that is intrinsic here. Garland was sacrificed as the scapegoat for the entire facility's broken security system. But the privatization trudges on with little oversight for the few companies who are tasked with storing and securing our nuclear facilities. For instance contractors constructing a new storage building discovered seven years into the design process that the ceilings needed to be 13 feet higher to fit the proper equipment. This mistake added $540 million to the design cost alone, almost doubling the initial cost for the entire project. We are paying for this system and for terrible mistakes it makes.
Please. Please read Almighty. We all need to meditate on what horrors we can create and how our bureaucratic chaos breeds illogical policies and downright destruction.
September 10, 2016
Everyone needs to read this book. Now.
It made me so angry, and also deeply embarrassed of my own superficial knowledge of the continued testing of nuclear weapons even after World War II.
The author did an amazing job of weaving together the personal stories of anti-nuclear activists, while at the same time describing the havoc that the US (and other nuclear powers) have wreaked on the environment, not to mention our government's role in exposing thousands of innocent American citizens to radiation (also the poor Marshallese citizens who now face Climate Change issues on top of radiation related illnesses directly caused by indiscrimInate nuclear testing on their islands by the US government).
The author doesn't so much indict the US for Hiroshima / Nagasaki, as much as he brings to light the colossal level of spending that keeps being directed at nuclear weapons even after the Cold War ended and how our government turns a blind eye to the mismanagement of nuclear sites by private contractors (security breaches, hacking, mis-handling of nuclear waste). Both republican as well as democratic presidents have paid lip service to nuclear disarmament while investing in the modernization of weaponry at the same time. It's particularly disheartening that we now have two presidential candidates - one who didn't even know what the "nuclear triad" was when asked about it in a primary debate, so he'll ensure further nuclear tension, while the other will maintain the status quo.
Of course, elimination of nuclear weapons is a complex issue - but what is scary is our inability to come to a moral agreement, let alone a political one. Our silence is deafening, we don't hold our elected leaders accountable and we should be ashamed about that.
If only we debated nuclear weapons as much as we debated what women should / should not wear, or whether women should have the right to choose. The issue of nuclear weapons is the ULTIMATE pro-life issue. There is REAL danger in nuclear waste, nuclear testing, and we don't ever hear about any of it. I'm not sure what I can do next, but I think it's important to keep learning about the non-proliferation movement, learning about the human costs of maintaining nuclear weapons, and the consequences of climate change on nuclear armed countries.
Here are some links for further reading, if this book doesn't make it to your reading list:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/nati...
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/ex...
http://www.icanw.org
http://wagingnonviolence.org
It made me so angry, and also deeply embarrassed of my own superficial knowledge of the continued testing of nuclear weapons even after World War II.
The author did an amazing job of weaving together the personal stories of anti-nuclear activists, while at the same time describing the havoc that the US (and other nuclear powers) have wreaked on the environment, not to mention our government's role in exposing thousands of innocent American citizens to radiation (also the poor Marshallese citizens who now face Climate Change issues on top of radiation related illnesses directly caused by indiscrimInate nuclear testing on their islands by the US government).
The author doesn't so much indict the US for Hiroshima / Nagasaki, as much as he brings to light the colossal level of spending that keeps being directed at nuclear weapons even after the Cold War ended and how our government turns a blind eye to the mismanagement of nuclear sites by private contractors (security breaches, hacking, mis-handling of nuclear waste). Both republican as well as democratic presidents have paid lip service to nuclear disarmament while investing in the modernization of weaponry at the same time. It's particularly disheartening that we now have two presidential candidates - one who didn't even know what the "nuclear triad" was when asked about it in a primary debate, so he'll ensure further nuclear tension, while the other will maintain the status quo.
Of course, elimination of nuclear weapons is a complex issue - but what is scary is our inability to come to a moral agreement, let alone a political one. Our silence is deafening, we don't hold our elected leaders accountable and we should be ashamed about that.
If only we debated nuclear weapons as much as we debated what women should / should not wear, or whether women should have the right to choose. The issue of nuclear weapons is the ULTIMATE pro-life issue. There is REAL danger in nuclear waste, nuclear testing, and we don't ever hear about any of it. I'm not sure what I can do next, but I think it's important to keep learning about the non-proliferation movement, learning about the human costs of maintaining nuclear weapons, and the consequences of climate change on nuclear armed countries.
Here are some links for further reading, if this book doesn't make it to your reading list:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/nati...
https://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/ex...
http://www.icanw.org
http://wagingnonviolence.org
February 7, 2017
This book is really a 3.5 for me... I enjoyed the first half a great deal but some parts of the second half felt bolted on. Waiting until the final chapter to introduce Rose Gottemoeller made it hard for me to care about her and the way the book wraps up.
Basically, the author runs out of steam when he runs out of history and arrives in the mundane world of current events whose significance he can only speculate about.
The core tale recounted in these pages of three pacifist senior citizens breaching the "high security" perimeter of Oak Ridge uranium enrichment facilities to graffiti anti-nuclear slogans is the best metaphor I know for why flakey tests in automated test suites are bad. There's no value in an alarm if you've learned to disregard it; That's the mistake the Oak Ridge security contractors made in this colossal fuckup.
Basically, the author runs out of steam when he runs out of history and arrives in the mundane world of current events whose significance he can only speculate about.
The core tale recounted in these pages of three pacifist senior citizens breaching the "high security" perimeter of Oak Ridge uranium enrichment facilities to graffiti anti-nuclear slogans is the best metaphor I know for why flakey tests in automated test suites are bad. There's no value in an alarm if you've learned to disregard it; That's the mistake the Oak Ridge security contractors made in this colossal fuckup.
July 9, 2016
I was given a chance to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book was very informative regarding almost everything to do with nuclear warheads since World War II. While I agree that we need to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons and the book was fact based, I didn't like that nearly everyone portrayed in activism against nuclear power was religious. Change needs to be enacted at a policy level, not by crossing boundary lines and painting messages in blood. I see fanatics on a crusade to enforce God's will. Going forward these activists should think about learning law so they can make real change. Some laws are meant to be broken, yes, but stepping across a line and going to jail for a few hours or a few years doesn't change anything.
This book was very informative regarding almost everything to do with nuclear warheads since World War II. While I agree that we need to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons and the book was fact based, I didn't like that nearly everyone portrayed in activism against nuclear power was religious. Change needs to be enacted at a policy level, not by crossing boundary lines and painting messages in blood. I see fanatics on a crusade to enforce God's will. Going forward these activists should think about learning law so they can make real change. Some laws are meant to be broken, yes, but stepping across a line and going to jail for a few hours or a few years doesn't change anything.
July 6, 2016
This book reviews the efforts of some groups/people that are trying to address the perils, foibles, instability, politics in this world of nuclear weapons. It does a real good job of educating the reader about this area/issue ....in the world today, & also educates about the history of this use/nonuse....it is rather scary to consider. It wasn't an overly 'exciting' book to read, but it was pretty easily readable, considering the subject matter....& I learned quite a bit...which earns it a higher rating. Pray/work for world peace!
In the interest of full disclosure, I did win this ARC free from a 'First to Read' giveaway program in return for a fair & honest review.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did win this ARC free from a 'First to Read' giveaway program in return for a fair & honest review.
June 30, 2016
This book with the epically long title was the first non-fiction book that I had read in a long time that felt like a fictional story, which is a credit to Dan Zak's inspired writing. Each new character introduction and shift between the past and the present made this book feel more the the peeling of an onion, which each layer revealing something new about what is one of the biggest issues of our time. I like that the book too the time to explain some of the fundamentals and origins of nuclear weapons and energy, while weaving it so tightly with the lives of those who participated and were affected by this arms race.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews