Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War

Would you even have time to duck and cover?

There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States.

Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.

In her new book Nuclear War: A Scenario, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made.

Join us as Jacobsen returns for a new Club program examining the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch.

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Photo by Hilary Jones.