The Wizards of Armageddon (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) [Paperback]

Fred Kaplan (Author), Martin J. Sherwin (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1991 | ISBN-10: 0804718849 | ISBN-13: 978-0804718844 | Edition: 1st

This is the untold story of the small group of men who have devised the plans and shaped the policies on how to use the Bomb. The book (first published in 1983) explores the secret world of these strategists and the nuclear age and brings to light a chapter in American political and military history never before revealed.

This is the third volume in the "Stanford Nuclear Age Series."

Product Details

• Paperback: 456 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1st edition (August 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804718849
• ISBN-13: 978-0804718844
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #49 in Books > History > Military > Weapons & Warfare > Nuclear

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Bomb I Grew Up With June 8, 2000

By Teresa Case

Format:Paperback

This fascinating review of nuclear strategy covers the period from 1945 to 1990. It is extraordinarily clear in presenting the options faced by Presidents and decision makers, and how they resulted in strategy that varied between "Nuke them back to the Stone Age" in 1948 to "MX Racetracks in the Nevada Desert" in the Caarter and Reagan Administration.

I found it a most compelling read, causing me to sacrifice sleep to continue, because it names names, dates, and places. Insight into all the news figures I grew up seeing on TV News.

I grew up as an Army Brat in the 1960's and 1970's, and this book explains why many of the weapons systems came and went. In-fact, it explains why our family "Came and Went" on a few stations!

I highly recommend this if you have even a passing interest in Nuclear War strategy and National Policy, or even in what part you and/or your parents/grandparents played in the "Big Picture".

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The human side of the "nuclear strategists" November 21, 2003

By Robert J. Crawford TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Fred Kaplan has done something very hard to achieve: portray a bunch of, well, nerds with sympathy and humor, explaining their trains of logic and their conclusions in readable prose. It is hard because most of them were micro-economists who lived in a world of utility functions, game theory, and loops of mathematical logic - just the kind of stuff that puts many off (like me) of "public policy" as an academic field that is dominated by economists who are little more than self-important if intelligent twits - with no practical wisdom whatsoever.

However, this group was important because they were trying to encapsulate nuclear weapons into their rationalist methodologies. Kaplan's book is the ideal companion to Freeman's Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, which is so dry by comparison and yet covers the strategy better. It is a fun read, though a bit overwhelming to get through as there were SO MANY of them. (There was an added interest for me, as I knew some of these characters as a student and was unimpressed with them as thinkers while respecting their impact on public policy.)

Whoever thought that microeconomists following their threads of logic could have had such an enormous influence on military strategy. I never would have! If I understood it, what they did was link military considerations into a mathematical methodology that could be studied and discussed and that offered conclusions - or predictions - if (tortuously) followed to their end. This helped military planers get a handle on these issues and (perhaps) to think more clearly.

Much of quality of this book is due to the fact that Kaplan is a really good reporter and not an academic who is just shuffling papers. He got out and talked to a lot of these guys, though none of them appear as particularly sympathetic characters to me. Amazingly, he used this book as his PhD disseration at MIT in poli-sci. You gotta respect him as a writer.

Recommended as a colorful view of some weird thinkers who had enormous influence on our lives.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Put that in your pipe and nuke it January 2, 2009

By T.B.

Format:Paperback

Dr. Kaplan offers a readable, enjoyable, and informative look at the "pipe-smoking" defense intellectuals who created from scratch nuclear strategy and policy for the United States following World War II. Kaplan describes these men and their accomplishments and failures within the context of historical events and their relationships to institutions, political and military leaders, and one another. Trained as a nuclear target analyst in the military during the Cold War, I particularly enjoyed and appreciated this book.