Apocalypse Never

Price: $24.95  

Subtitle: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
Author: Tad Daley
Subject: Public Policy, International, Current Affairs
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8135-4661-2
Pages: 288 pages
Publication Date: May 2010

Read an Excerpt

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed in 1968 and came into force in 1970. In May 2010, both diplomats and nongovernmental leaders are gathering at the UN in New York for the 40 Year NPT Review Conference -- as mandated by the treaty itself -- to assess how the various parties are complying with the obligations they undertook four long decades ago. Here is the opening section of Chapter 7 of Apocalypse Never, called "The Grand Bargain of the NPT and the Rules of the Nuclear Game Today" . . . Read Chapter

Watch

Tad Daley discuss the urgent need to revitalize the nuclear abolition movement.

Tad Daley speaks about Apocalypse Never

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Praise for Apocalypse Never

"Tad Daley has performed a truly rare feat. He doesn't offer the same tired survey of Iran and North Korea and the contemporary nuclear landscape. Instead, he convinces the reader completely that the only possible solution to the threat of nuclear annihilation is the abolition of nuclear weapons. Moreover, he actually charts a course for how we might get from here to there. Mr. Daley is an elegant writer, and his wonderful first book will enable both experts and regular folks to see, breathe, and believe in the dawn of a nuclear weapon-free world."—Daniel Ellsberg, former State Department and Defense Department official and author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

“Apocalypse Never is an important and path-breaking book. Tad Daley doesn’t just look at why we should strive to eliminate nuclear weapons, he demonstrates how to make it happen. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand how to turn a grand vision into a political reality.”—John Podesta, President and CEO, Center for American Progress; White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton

“My film Apocalypse Now revealed how war corrupts the human soul. But the idea that we can have peace only through ‘nuclear deterrence’ degrades our entire civilization. With Apocalypse Never, Tad Daley shows us the path of escape.”—Martin Sheen, The West Wing, Apocalypse Now; Golden Globe-Award and Emmy-Award Winning Actor

“In plain, understandable prose, Apocalypse Never makes a compelling case that the continued existence of nuclear weapons, regardless of their ownership, can lead to catastrophic disasters. A must-read.”—Lt. General Robert G. Gard, Jr., (U.S. Army, Retired) and chair, Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation 

“Few Americans know that more than forty years ago, in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, our country committed to eliminate its entire nuclear arsenal. In Apocalypse Never, Tad Daley traces the tortured history of this promise—and charts a course toward at last fulfilling it.”—Michael Douglas, Wall Street, The China Syndrome; Academy-Award Winning Actor; United Nations Messenger of Peace.

“For those of us who think that freeing the planet from the specter of nuclear holocaust is the most important task before humankind, but also one that’s nearly impossible to achieve, Tad Daley has drawn us a roadmap for the journey ahead. It demands no wild leaps of faith, no suspensions of disbelief. Mixing political sobriety with existential urgency and just plain damn good writing, Daley shows us the way.”—Harold Meyerson, columnist, The Washington Post and editor-at-large, The American Prospect

“Finally, a book that explains in common sense language the process for bringing a nuclear weapon–free world from utopia to reality.”—Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, 1997–present

“Tad Daley takes a penetrating look at the threat President Barack Obama calls ‘the gravest danger to the American people,’ and does so with clarity and integrity. Apocalypse Never details how the failed policies of the past have made the nuclear threat worse and how the only real solution is to move steadily towards eliminating the only weapons that can destroy the world. We would be wise to listen.”—Joseph Cirincione, president, The Ploughshares Fund and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons

“Americans have ignored two facts about nuclear weapons that Tad Daley brilliantly illuminates in historical perspective. First are the consequences of what J. Robert Oppenheimer called our use of atomic bombs against ‘an essentially defeated enemy.’ Second is our responsibility for promoting nuclear deterrence as a legitimate policy. We are thus largely responsible for the threat that nuclear weapons pose to the continued survival of humanity, and we are the only nation capable of successfully leading an effort to abolish nuclear weapons. Can we do it? Yes we can, and Apocalypse Never shows us how.”—Martin J. Sherwin, University Professor of History, George Mason University; author of A World Destroyed and coauthor of American Prometheus, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“While spiritual progressives seek to end all war, a major step is to end the threat of nuclear war. Tad Daley shows us that this is actually within our grasp, and an imperative for the survival of our planet and life itself.”—Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, Tikkun and chair, Interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives

“Tad Daley makes a compelling case for eliminating nuclear weapons now, before they are used intentionally by a terrorist group or accidentally by a nuclear-armed nation. The weight of the evidence supplied in Apocalypse Never leads to an inescapable conclusion: the fewer nuclear weapons there are, the safer we all will be. And it makes it clear that our ultimate security depends on getting rid of these terrible weapons once and for all.”
—William D. Hartung, New America Foundation and coeditor of Lessons from Iraq: Preventing the Next War

More praise for Apocalypse Never

Apocalypse Never illuminates why we must abolish nuclear weapons, how we can, and what the world will look like after we do. The twenty-first century has ushered in a world at the atomic edge. The pop culture days of Dr. Strangelove have been replaced by the all-too-real single day of 24. Tad Daley has written a book for the general reader about this most crucial of contemporary challenges.

Apocalypse Never maintains that the abolition of nuclear weapons is both essential
and achievable, and reveals in fine detail what we need to do—both governments and movements—to make it a reality. Daley insists that while global climate change poses the single greatest long-term peril to the human race, the nuclear challenge in its many incarnations—nuclear terror, nuclear accident, a nuclear crisis spinning out of control— poses the single most immediate peril. Daley launches a wholesale assault on the nuclear double standard—the notion that the United States permits itself thousands of these weapons but forbids others from aspiring to even one—insisting that it is militarily unnecessary, morally indefensible, and politically unsustainable. He conclusively repudiates the most frequent objection to nuclear disarmament, “the breakout scenario”—the possibility that after abolition someone might whip back the curtain, reveal a dozen nuclear warheads, and proceed to “rule the world.”

On the wings of a brand new era in American history, Apocalypse Never makes the case that a comprehensive nuclear policy agenda from President Obama, one that fully integrates nonproliferation with disarmament, can both eliminate immediate nuclear dangers and set us irreversibly on the road to abolition. In jargon-free language, Daley explores the possible verification measures, enforcement mechanisms, and governance structures of a nuclear weapon–free world. Most importantly, he decisively argues that universal nuclear disarmament is something we can transform from a utopian fantasy into a concrete political goal.

Author Photo by Sally Aristei, www.seesallyshoot.com