Avoiding Armageddon: The Companion Book to the PBS Series [Hardcover]

Martin Schram (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2003

Published in conjunction with the eight-hour public-television series airing this spring, Avoiding Armageddon focuses our attention like never before on threats posed by weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. It engages the reader in an exploration of who endangers our national interest, the forms their threats might take, and what can be done to avert the kinds of disasters likely to ensue from the use of unsecured weapons.Martin Schram and his team of reporters explain why biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare may very well be our next nightmare. Using interviews with an international team of experts, Avoiding Armageddon is a riveting story of America's newfound vulnerability and offers a new understanding of the future contours of our personal, national, and global security.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This companion book to a PBS series (airing April 14-17) details the threats facing the U.S. today-from nuclear, chemical and biological attack and from terrorism-and outlines possible solutions. Schram, a syndicated columnist for Scripps-Howard, succeeds admirably in translating eight hours of documentary footage into anecdotal prose. There is a wealth of historical and statistical detail here (for example, that there are 32,000 nuclear bombs and warheads on the planet, all but 2,000 belonging to the U.S. and Russia), but Schram lets the interviews carry the book. Thus Leonid Smirnoff, a former foreman at a Russian chemical-research site, tells how he easily siphoned off enriched uranium to sell on the black market, enough for a terrorist to build a nuclear bomb. An Iraqi defector who worked on Saddam Hussein's nuclear program details how, in 1956, the U.S. gave Iraq the Manhattan Project reports through its ill-advised Atoms for Peace program. In discussing chemical threats, Schram details efforts by companies like DuPont and Dow after WWI to sell legislators on the idea of "humane" chemical warfare. Also alarming is the section on Project 112, in which the U.S. Army and Navy targeted populations in American cities in secret open-air biological tests. The centerpiece of the section on terrorism is an informative series of interviews with Rohan Gunaratna, an expert on al-Qaeda. Gunaratna notably singles out terrorist propaganda as a powerful fund-raising and recruitment tool that must be dismantled if the war on terror is to succeed. The final section of the book outlines solutions aimed at addressing the poverty and political unrest around the world that he says foster terrorism and other potential threats.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

"Safeguarding the United States homeland in the age of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism" is an issue on the minds of not just our elected leaders but also every citizen, a concern reflected in the presentation next month of a PBS miniseries on the topic by Ted Turner Documentaries, which will be anchored by Walter Cronkite. This book is the companion to the series, which both analyzes the situation and prescribes solutions. Schram, a journalist and book writer, basically divides his commentary into two aspects, reasons for people to be alarmed and what to do to reduce the risk, as he sees the likelihood of potential threats coming in three arenas: from nuclear devices, chemical weapons, and biological weapons. He offers fresh insights into such relevant subtopics as the Al-Qaeda operation and the mind-set of the typical suicide bomber. Solutions are laid primarily at the door of today's world leaders, who, the author insists, must first and foremost safeguard and destroy the world's supply of weapons of mass destruction. All discussion points are spelled out for everyone to understand--not watered down, just made clear. The book, and the series to follow, is shocking, discomfiting, and necessary. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; export ed edition (March 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465072550
• ISBN-13: 978-0465072552
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,118,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars World issues...analysis and solutions....one view, April 14, 2003

By 

Sreeram Ramakrishnan (Lynnfield, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Avoiding Armageddon: The Companion Book to the PBS Series (Hardcover)

In a classic example to the power of anecdotal style of writing for discussing "serious" issues, Schram is successful in conveying the perils faced by the world (mostly from the Western, and more specifically from the US point of view). The book has been organized into distinct and independent sections covering various aspects of the terrorist threats. The author does manage to convey important ideas and some potential solutions (mostly utopian dreams) to the problems identified in each section (the identification of the problem and the analysis of the origins of the problems are well discussed and documented). Of particular interest were the section on nuclear threat in the South Asia, and the interview with terrorist "planner" from Al-Queda. In the former, the author provides a chilling array fo scenarios of what could happen if indeed a nuclear war does erupt in South Asia. The dangers of "fog of war" , quoting mostly Pakistani army personnel and US analysts makes for some compelling reading. The section also provides an interesting account of how the two main players - India and Pakistan became nuclear players from the seemingly innocent "atoms of peace" program. The role of the West (particularly US and Canada) in the case of India and the role of China (in Pakistan's program) is well discussed. The author fails to provide any "reasonable and practical" solutions to defuse the tense situations. The same holds true for most of the book - good discussions on problem statement and description, fairly good analysis, not-so-great proposed solution methods. There is also a section on what ordinary citizens and "world leaders" can do to decrease the threats mentioned in the book..makes for some interesting reading, but doubtful if any foreign policy framers would abide by it, given the political framework the foreign poliocy decisions have to depend on.

Overall, the book is well-organized, written for easy reading, avoids political hyperboles (though a tinge of leftist agenda is noticable at times), and provides an excellent summary pf the origins of most of the current threats we face as a world . A must read for anyone remotely interested in current affairs, foreign policy and modern history.

7 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A good book...if you're a Democrat, June 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Avoiding Armageddon: The Companion Book to the PBS Series (Hardcover)

I was very disappointed with this book. I was looking for a comprehensive review of all of the issues associated with WMD proliferation...something evenly balancing conservative and liberal policies/viewpoints and accomplishments over time (no one's perfect with respect to this stuff). But instead this book reads like a Clinton re-election speech. Should have known since it was funded by Ted Turner Documentaries.

To save you a little time (and money), let me summarize the main points in the book:
- Nunn-Lugar Act is good (that's the only bipartisan point I agreed with)
- Clinton's blanket waiver policy for the Russians to comply with Nunn-Lugar is good
- Bush's insistence that Russia comply before receiving billions of US $'s is bad
- Anything that Clinton did was good...and Gore would have kept it going
- Anything that either Bush did was bad...and Reagan was 50/50
That's about it. I just saved you from reading 330 pages of Democratic eyewash masquerading as journalism...unless that's what you're looking for. In that case, it'll be a good book for you.