The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (American Empire Project) [Paperback]

Jonathan Schell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0805088660 | ISBN-13: 978-0805088663 | Edition: First Edition

From the bestselling author of The Fate of the Earth, a provocative look at the urgent threat posed by America's new nuclear policies

When the cold war ended, many Americans believed the nuclear dilemma had ended with it. Instead, the bomb has moved to the dead center of foreign policy and even domestic scandal. From missing WMDs to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, nuclear matters are back on the front page.

In this provocative book, Jonathan Schell argues that a revolution in nuclear affairs has occurred under the watch of the Bush administration, including a historic embrace of a first-strike policy to combat proliferation. The administration has also encouraged a nuclear renaissance at home, with the development of new generations of such weaponry. Far from curbing nuclear buildup, Schell contends, our radical policy has provoked proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere; exacerbated global trafficking in nuclear weapons; and taken the world into an era of unchecked nuclear terror. Incisive and passionately argued, The Seventh Decade offers essential insight into what may prove the most volatile decade of the nuclear age.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Jonathan Schell has been warning us about the dangers of nuclear weapons since his seminal book, The Fate of the Earth. The Seventh Decade shows how pressing this issue still is. Schell offers a provocative analysis of the current dangers and puts them in the context of history. It's a fascinating and important book.”—Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe

 

“In yet another tour de force, Jonathan Schell, our chronicler as conscience, addresses the salient fact of the era—that amid the ultimate terror of nuclear weapons, Americans live under one of the most heedless and dangerous governments in history. Once again, Schell honors us with a profound warning. Our consummate shame is that we do nothing about it.”—Roger Morris, author of Taking Comfort

 

"Jonathan Schell has written a courageous book, a clarion call for the world to stop its drift toward 'nuclear anarchy'—which cannot occur absent a radical change in U. S. nuclear policy.”—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War

"No voice is as clear, no mind is as sharp, and no writings about nuclear weapons have been as perceptive as Jonathan Schell's books and articles since 1982. Now, in The Seventh Decade, Schell once again reveals in lucid prose the most inconvenient truth: the nuclear weapons policies of our government endanger our security, our planet and the very existence of our specie. This is a book that every responsible voter should read before November 2008.”—Martin J. Sherwin, Pulitzer prize-winning author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

About the Author

Jonathan Schell, author of The Unconquerable World (0-8050-4467-4) and The Fate of the Earth among many other titles, is the Nation Institute's Harold Willens Peace Fellow. His "Letter from Ground Zero" column appears in The Nation regularly. He also writes for Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, and Tomdispatch.com. He is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books; First Edition edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805088660
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088663
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #886,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars kudos to Schell, again, November 18, 2007

By 

Winslow Myers "Beyond War volunteer" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)

Since he published The Fate of the Earth, Jonathan Schell has shown himself to be the most cogent and unflinching thinker on the planet about the dilemmas of nuclear weaponry. He has evolved an elegant style that gets beyond the portentousness, perhaps unavoidable given the subject, of his earlier classic. But like The Fate of the Earth, The Seventh Decade is composed in a style of high responsibility, as if our lives were dependent upon the success of his arguments, which in a sense they are. This latest book is perhaps his best yet. In a kind of dividend of the main direction of his thought, he provides the clearest analysis I've seen of our government's ultimate rationale for the invasion of Iraq, set in the larger context of American global strategy. In a refreshing refusal to demonize Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, Schell calmly untangles their motivations from the record of events and policy statements, and shows why their larger strategy of total American military domination of the globe, while well-intentioned and even daring, has not only not worked to slow nuclear proliferation, but has actually accelerated it. Schell shows exactly why our post-9/11 American experiment with empire as a way to protect ourselves from both other nuclear powers and from terrorism contains built-in contradictions that doom our hegemonic intentions to inevitable failure. He returns to the bizarre but exhilarating moment of Reykjavik 1986, where Gorbachev and Reagan came close to agreeing to give up their nuclear arsenals altogether, as not only a tragic might-have-been but a model for future efforts. In the end, because Schell faces all the difficulties and complexities directly, this turns out to be a hopeful book about a terrifying subject: p. 14" "Not since the world's second nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki has history's third use of a nuclear weapon seemed more likely." If only our leaders would take a quiet day to reflect alongside Schell! But they probably won't, unless we citizens get involved and ask new questions of presidential candidates, like: Is it realistic to think we can solve the nuclear dilemma by endlessly maintaining our double standard of nukes for the "good guys" and no nukes for the "bad guys"?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read For the Concerned Layperson and Expert Scholar Alike, December 25, 2007

By 

Bruce Roth (Atlanta, Georgia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoy reading Schell. He is a brilliant wordsmith and master of metaphor. Schell's keen insight added a new dimension to my understanding of the history of nuclear weapons and their proper role in our future security. There is nothing arcane in The Seventh Decade. It is filled with interesting, informative, and important lessons from history that Americans in particular must be mindful of in order to avoid sharing the fate of every previous great world power, and humanity in general must learn in order to avert causing its own doom.

Bruce A. Roth, Executive Director

Daisy Alliance

Author of "No Time To Kill"

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nuclear Threat Hasn't Gone Away, January 9, 2008

By 

D Jones "DP Jones" (Alexandria, VA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (American Empire Project) (Hardcover)

A must read to understand the current nuclear threat and a rational, if not extremely difficult, roadmap to reducing worldwide nuclear weapons hardware to zero. Schell undertands the subject as a longtime expert and makes the point that unless we act, nuclear weapons will proliferate among state and non-state actors who are more likely to employ them than at anytime since 1945.

Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Defense Policy Board and past Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, in a discussion with Jonathan Schell on NPR agreed Schell's proposals were "nice" but not practical. Schell countered that his proposals were "essential" and would be implemented one way or another. He'd prefer they be implemented before a nuclear device or devices were exploded on U.S. soil but they'd certainly be implemented after such a catastrophic event. Adelman believes (as does the Bush Administration) that the best we can hope for are strong non-proliferation efforts, strenghtening nuclear weapons tamper resistance and improved nuclear security for nations which already have them, and the certainty that any nuclear device exploded in America which can be traced to a donor country will result in massive retaliation (read nuclear retaliation).

Schell generally agrees with Adelman and points out we must then take the next step to reducing nuclear weapons hardware worldwide to zero. Probably the most difficult diplomatic task of the 21st Century! An excellent read to fully understand the nature of the threat in this new century.