The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976 [Paperback]

Michael Mandelbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1980 | ISBN-10: 0521296145 | ISBN-13: 978-0521296144

Originally published in 1979, this book is a history of American nuclear weapons policy that tells how the United States learned to live with the bomb. Little of what has been written about nuclear weapons is historical. Most people concerned with the problems of nuclear armaments have asked 'what is to be done?' rather than 'what has happened and why?' But The Nuclear Question is more than a chronology. It offers original and provocative arguments about the development of military strategy and arms limitations with the Soviet Union, and focuses in particular on the Kennedy administration. During that period the innovations of Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Limited Test Ban Treaty combined to establish the main lines of nuclear policy that the United States follows today. This book will have great appeal to specialists who follow the technical developments of armaments and the political responses to those developments and to the general reader who does not feel at home in discussions of throw-weights, cruise missiles and MIRVs. Written in a clear, readable style, The Nuclear Question will be a valuable book for anyone who wishes to understand better the nuclear issues of our time.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Preface; 1. The nuclear question; 2. The failure of liberal diplomacy; 3. The origins of strategy; 4. The foundations of stable deterrence; 5. the rise and fall of nuclear war; 6. The great fight: the Cuban missile crisis; 7. The first step: the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963; 8. Fencers on a tightrope.

Book Description

This book is a history of American nuclear weapons policy that tells how the United States learned to live with the bomb. Written in a clear, readable style, The Nuclear Question will be a valuable book for anyone who wishes to understand better the nuclear issues of our time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 30, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521296145
• ISBN-13: 978-0521296144
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,345,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Mandelbaum is the Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. and is the director of the American Foreign Policy Program there. He has also held teaching posts at Harvard and Columbia Universities, and at the United States Naval Academy.

His most recent book, written with co-author Thomas L. Friedman, is THAT USED TO BE US: HOW AMERICA FELL BEHIND IN THE WORLD IT INVENTED AND HOW WE CAN COME BACK. Its publication date is September 5, 2011.

He serves on the board of advisors of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington-based organization sponsoring research and public discussion on American policy toward the Middle East.

A graduate of Yale College, Professor Mandelbaum earned his Master's degree at King's College, Cambridge University and his doctorate at Harvard University.

Professor Mandelbaum is the author or co-author of numerous articles and of 13 books: That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (2011) with co-author Thomas L. Friedman; The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era (2010); Democracy's Good Name: The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government (2007); The Case For Goliath: How America Acts As The World's Government in the Twenty-first Century (2006); The Meaning of Sports: Why Americans Watch Baseball, Football and Basketball and What They See When They Do (2004); The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century (2002); The Dawn of Peace in Europe (1996); The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the 19th and 20th Centuries (1988); The Global Rivals, (co-author, 1988); Reagan and Gorbachev (co-author, 1987); The Nuclear Future (1983); The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics Before and After Hiroshima (1981); and The Nuclear Question: The United States and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-1976 (1979). He is also the editor of twelve books.