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

Praise for Apocalypse Never

"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 accurately assesses that the threat is not just the nuclear weapons held or sought by others but over 5,000 hydrogen bombs we ourselves still hold. Daley 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

"Nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and the dream of nuclear abolition have been studied primarily by experts and policy wonks -- the 'nuclear priesthood.' The subject cries out for clarity, relevance, and the ability to engage ordinary citizens. Daley answers this call splendidly. "—Robert K. Musil, Chairman of the Board, 2020 Vision: Environment, Energy and Security Solutions, and author of Hope for a Heated Planet

"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, author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
 

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 Strangelove have been replaced by the all-too-real single day of 24.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.

TAD DALEY, J.D., Ph.D., is the writing fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace laureate organization. He has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor for Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Congresswoman Diane Watson, and the late Senator Alan Cranston, and as a member of the International Policy Department at the RAND Corporation.

Daley is at the center of today's fast-paced media world. He has written for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, the Christian Science Monitor, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Miami Herald, the Baltimore Sun, the Forward, Tikkun, the United Nations Chronicle, the Foreign Service Journal, the LA CityBeat, and quite frequently in the blogosphere at HuffingtonPost.com, AlterNet.org, TruthDig.com, TruthOut.org, and CommonDreams.org.