The Bomb: A New History
From a designer of nuclear weapons, this primer discusses the history, strategic rationales, and technical and industrial requirements of America’s maintenance of a nuclear arsenal. As weighty as these topics are, Younger writes clearly about them for the public audience. Dispelling misconceptions about nuclear weapons, Younger discusses how hard, as an engineering matter, it is for a country’s nuclear experts to detonate a bomb and to have absolute confidence that the bombs it manufactures will work reliably, if ever needed. If this sounds cold-blooded, Younger starts with the premise that the bomb cannot be wished away and that the dilemmas of its existence require rational consideration of the minimum number that the U.S. should keep for safety in an unpredictable international environment. Reviewing numbers from zero up to tens of thousands, Younger settles on the 1,000 range, arguing that even that level would necessitate a revival of the country’s nuclear complex. For lay readers, this is an indispensable guide to the science and strategy of nuclear weapons. --Gilbert Taylor