A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-ups

A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-ups

A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-ups

A Short History of Nuclear Folly: Mad Scientists, Dithering Nazis, Lost Nukes, and Catastrophic Cover-ups

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Overview

In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, a blackly sardonic people’s history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the hushed-up and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with catastrophe

Rudolph Herzog, the acclaimed author of Dead Funny, presents a devastating account of history’s most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From the rarely-discussed nightmare of “Broken Arrows” (40 nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War) to “Operation Plowshare” (a proposal to use nuclear bombs for large engineering projects, such as a the construction of a second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs), Herzog focuses in on long-forgotten nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster.

In an unprecedented people’s history, Herzog digs deep into archives, interviews nuclear scientists, and collects dozens of rare photos. He explores the “accidental” drop of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train conductor’s home, the implanting of plutonium into patients’ hearts, and the invention of wild tactical nukes, including weapons designed to kill enemy astronauts.

Told in a riveting narrative voice, Herzog—the son of filmmaker Werner Herzog—also draws on childhood memories of the final period of the Cold War in Germany, the country once seen as the nuclear battleground for NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries, and discusses evidence that Nazi scientists knew how to make atomic weaponry . . . and chose not to.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781612191744
Publisher: Melville House Publishing
Publication date: 04/30/2013
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 256
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Rudolph Herzog is the author of Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler’s Germany. His documentary on humor in the Third Reich, Laughing with Hitler, scored top audience ratings on German Channel 1 and was also broadcast on the BBC. He is the son of the celebrated filmmaker Werner Herzog. A documentary by Rudolph Herzog based on A Short History of Nuclear Folly was released in 2014. He is currently filming How to Sell a War

Jefferson Chase is one of the foremost translators of German history. He has translated Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Thomas Mann, and Götz Aly, among many other writers.

Read an Excerpt

Did you know?

• Edward Teller, the “father of the H-Bomb,” relentlessly promoted a plan to use 300 nukes to build a second Panama Canal.

• Atomic technology ended up in many places where it didn’t belong: Reactors were used to power satellites, some of which crash-landed and triggered nuclear emergencies. A plutonium battery was also installed at the top of the Himalayas . . . and lost.

• There’s a derelict research reactor in the middle of Kinshasa, Congo, which was built by an eccentric Belgian missionary. The reactor is falling apart, and several uranium fuel rods have been stolen.

• John Wayne died of cancer, as did 46 members of the crew of The Conqueror, a notoriously bad B-movie shot in a contaminated canyon near the Nevada nuclear testing range.

• About 40 nuclear weapons were lost during the Cold War, some in populated areas in the U.S. Some almost triggered, others were never retrieved.

• Nazi scientist Gernot Zippe was captured by the Soviets and forced to build the uranium centrifuge, which was used by Iran, Pakistan and North Korea to build bombs.

Table of Contents

Preface 3

1 After the Bomb, the World s Most Dangerous Invention 7

2 The Red Bomb 31

3 The Myth of Tactical Nuclear War 47

4 The Radioactive Cowboy, or How Alaska Got the Bomb 59

5 Swords into Plowshares 83

6 The Doomsday Machine 113

7 Flying Reactors 127

8 How Safe Is Safe? 153

9 Atomic Australia 165

10 The Deadly Detours of Nuclear Medicine 187

11 Broken Arrows 197

Notes 219

Works Cited 231

Index 237

Acknowledgments 252

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”Meticulously researched and thrillingly told—reading this is as informative as it is spine-chillingly entertaining"
Die Zeit

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