The Twilight of the Bombs:Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons

"Every age finds the writers it needs, and the nuclear age has found Richard Rhodes."---The Nation

"Engrossing and illuminating... A dramatic and penetrating investigation of the nuclear arms race and its eventual end."---The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A book of formidable range...Rhodes writes with a sharp eye for anecdote, character, and political context, and with the talent for lucid exposition of technical issues that he displayed in his award-winning The Making of The Atomic Bomb. The result is a brilliantly rich and vivid account of the interlocked early history of the Cold War and the arms race that is as chilling as it is enthralling."---The New York Times Book Review

"Dark Sun demonstrates the same ambition; literary skill; unrelenting research; talent for portraiture; understanding of the links between science, war and politics; willingness to stand up to large historical questions; and sound judgment that distinguished The Making Of The Atomic Bomb."---Los Angeles Times

"A monumental and enthralling history ...Alive and vibrant."---San Francisco Chronicle

"Rich in drama and suspense, The Making Of The Atomic Bomb has remarkable breadth and depth, revealing new connections, insights, and surprises. The book bristles with detail and irony ...The Making Of The Atomic Bomb offers not only the best overview of the century's pivotal event, but a probing analysis of what it means for the future."---The New York Times Book Review

The culminating volume in Richard Rhodes's monumental and prizewinning history of nuclear weapons, offering the first comprehensive narrative of the challenges faced in a post-cold War age.

The past twenty years have transformed our relationship with nuclear weapons drastically. With extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding, Rhodes makes clear how the five original nuclear powers---Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and especially the United States---have struggled with new realities. He shows us how the stage was set for a second tragic war when Iraq secretly destroyed its nuclear infrastructure and reveals the real reasons George W. Bush chose to fight a second war in Iraq. We see how the efforts of U.S. weapons labs laid the groundwork for nuclear consolidation in the former Soviet Union, how and why South Africa secretly built and then destroyed a small nuclear arsenal, and how Jimmy Carter's private diplomacy prevented another Korean War.

We also see how the present day represents a nuclear turning point and what hope exists for our future. Rhodes assesses the emerging threat of nuclear terrorism and offers advice on how our complicated relationships with North Korea and South Asia should evolve. Finally, he imagines what a post-nuclear world might look like, suggesting what might make it possible.

Powerful and persuasive, The Twilight of the Bombs is an essential work of contemporary history.

Richard Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-three books, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, which was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in History. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Ford, Guggenheim, MacArthur, and Alfred P. Sloan foundations, among others. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, and a host and correspondent for the public television series Frontline and American Experience. He lectures frequently in the United States and abroad. He lives near Half Moon Bay, California.

Richard Rhodes's Arsenals of Folly, John James Audubon, Masters of Death, and Why They Kill are available in Vintage paperback.