Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to human society. Their huge cost robs people in poverty of essential services and support. Since 1981 when I joined a 6700-mile walk across the U.S. and nine other countries to Bethlehem, I have campaigned for disarmament, uncovered extensive deception about their production, and advocated for the millions of people harmed by the radiation released from the production and testing of nuclear weapons. I long for the day when we will not have to live in fear of a nuclear Armageddon.
I wrote...
Atomic Pilgrim: How Walking Thousands of Miles for Peace Led to Uncovering Some of America's Darkest Nuclear Secrets
Jacobsen’s terrifying account of how rapidly global nuclear destruction can happen is why I’ve already recommended it to many colleagues and friends. It reminded me of Jonathon Schell’s The Fate of the Earth that was one of the factors in my decision to join the Bethlehem Peace Pilgrimage.
By describing the interlocking U.S. launch detection, command and control, and delivery systems, Nuclear War provides readers with a realistic series of events that demonstrate the dangers of maintaining nuclear arsenals. Even though I have read scores of books regarding nuclear weapons over the last 45 years, this book gave me new insights and renewed my sense of urgency to achieve a world without these destructive weapons.
This book reveals much more than the Silkwood movie (starring Meryl Streep and Cher) dared to. Rashke’s book gave me a guide to uncovering decades of deception at the Hanford plutonium factory in Washington State.
By reporting on several mysterious deaths of people connected to her, The Killing of Karen Silkwood educated me on the perils I could face if I persisted in my investigation.
Karen Silkwood, an employee of the Kerr-McGee plutonium processing plant, was killed in a car crash on her way to deliver important documents to a newspaper reporter in 1974. Silkwood was a union activist concerned about health and safety issues at the plant, and her death at age twenty-eight was considered by many to be highly suspicious. Was it Kerr-McGee's revenge on a troublesome whistle-blower? Or was it part of a much larger conspiracy reaching from the Atomic Energy Commission to the FBI and the CIA?
Richard Rashke leads us through the myriad of charges and countercharges, theories and facts,…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I love Merton’s clarity of thought and how his writing penetrates very complex issues to reveal what is really at stake.
This is especially true with Peace in the Post-Christian Era that confronts the hidden traps of nuclear deterrence. Even though Merton wrote in the early 1960s, his insights into American societal dynamics still make this book relevant to today’s moral, political, and spiritual challenges.
Writing at the height of the Cold War, Merton issued a passionate cry for sanity and a challenge to the idea that unthinkable violence can be squared with the Gospel of Christ. Censors of Merton's Trappist order blocked publication of this work, but forty years later, despite changing circumstances, his prophetic message remains eerily topical. At a time when the "war on terrorism" has replaced the struggle against communism, Merton's work continues to demonstrate the power and relevance of the Gospel in answering the most urgent challenges of our time.
Iverson’s memoir mirrors my own experience of growing up near nuclear weapons sites, only to find out later the dangers we were exposed to as children.
Iverson grew up near the Rocky Flats plant outside of Denver. It machined plutonium produced at Hanford into the cores of U.S. nuclear weapons. As she dug into the secret history of Rocky Flats, she uncovers family secrets—eerily like my own memoir.
“An intimate and deeply human memoir that shows why we should all be concerned about nuclear safety, and the dangers of ignoring science in the name of national security.”—Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
A shocking account of the government’s attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic waste released by a secret nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and a community’s vain search for justice—soon to be a feature documentary
Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the…
Social Security for Future Generations
by
John A. Turner,
This book provides new options for reform of the Social Security (OASI) program. Some options are inspired by the U.S. pension system, while others are inspired by the literature on financial literacy or the social security systems in other countries.
An example of our proposals inspired by the U.S. pension…
Many people find books on the dangers of nuclear weapons to be technical and boring. Schlosser’s Command and Control avoids these off-putting aspects by immersing readers in a thriller about an accident that came close to wiping Arkansas off the map while Bill Clinton was governor.
By interweaving this gripping account with frightening details of other nuclear weapons accidents, Schlosser keeps readers turning page after page.
The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Command and Control, directed by Robert Kenner, finds its origins in Eric Schlosser's book and continues to explore the little-known history of the management and safety concerns of America's nuclear aresenal.
"A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Fascinating." -Lev Grossman, TIME Magazine
"Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety." -San Francisco Chronicle
A myth-shattering expose of America's nuclear weapons
Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of…
James Patrick Thomas’s path toward nuclear disarmament began on Good Friday, 1982, when he and his fellow peace pilgrims started walking away from the Trident Nuclear Submarine Base near Seattle. Their Bethlehem Peace Pilgrimage would span 6,700 miles across the United States and nine other countries, each step aimed at ending the nuclear arms race. After two years on the road, Jim turned his attention toward the Hanford plutonium factory. Over the next two decades, Jim helped uncover stunning revelations about Hanford’s toxic regional impact and its role in our nation’s nuclear weapons complex.
Atomic Pilgrim is the story of how one person’s faith, actions, and persistence can impact seemingly immovable systems and hold even the most powerful bureaucracies to account.
