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Most of what is written on nuclear weapons concentrates, understandably, on the here and now: the nuclear threat is a central and continuing fact of modern history . But this is intellectually constricting, both for understanding the nuclear age and for making thoughtful political judgments. It is essential to recognize what we have inherited since 1945 and why people have thought about nuclear weapons in the way they have. In Beyond Nuclear Thinking, Robert Malcolmson analyses the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy since 1945, connecting the legacies of the past with the politics of the 1990s. The nuclear nation states still consider it legitimate to use the threat of nuclear weapons to achieve their own ends. Malcolmson explains why the doctrine of "deterrence" became so central to the political idea of security and reveals the confused nature of recent approaches to the pursuit of international security. Beyond Nuclear Thinking presents a non-technical and broadly based interpretation of important aspects of life and thought in the nuclear age

Most of what is written on nuclear weapons concentrates, understandably, on the here and now: the nuclear threat is a central and continuing fact of modern history . But this is intellectually constricting, both for understanding the nuclear age and for making thoughtful political judgments. It is essential to recognize what we have inherited since 1945 and why people have thought about nuclear weapons in the way they have. In Beyond Nuclear Thinking, Robert Malcolmson analyses the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy since 1945, connecting the legacies of the past with the politics of the 1990s. The nuclear nation states still consider it legitimate to use the threat of nuclear weapons to achieve their own ends. Malcolmson explains why the doctrine of "deterrence" became so central to the political idea of security and reveals the confused nature of recent approaches to the pursuit of international security. Beyond Nuclear Thinking presents a non-technical and broadly based interpretation of important aspects of life and thought in the nuclear age.

Malcolmson identifies changes in those realities and our perceptions, and misperceptions, of them. He considers humanity's new technologies and our efforts to manage and understand them, especially as they relate to war and peace. Placing all in a historical context, Malcolmson analyses the politics of the nuclear arms race in relation to the international political culture of the past forty years. From this analysis he creates historical depth for contemporary issues and a perspective from which we can decide how to deal with nuclear energy in the future

"War had an impact on even genteel civilians in unraided cities like Oxford (though safety was never assured), among them Madge Martin (born 1899), wife of the vicar of St Michael at the North Gate, Oxford. Her pre-war life, full of travel, theatre visits, walks, books and films, was jolted into very different realities: she found herself undertaking more housework (by 1943 she had lost both her maids), volunteering with the Red Cross, and housing her two sisters' families, who self-evacuated at different times to Madge's home to escape London's air raids. Her private diary, engagingly and accessibly written, discloses much about her thoughts and feelings and social relations; some tribulations (she endured serious and frequent headaches); and her ambivalences concerning her role as a parson's wife. It shows both the persistence of comfortable, established lifestyles and necessary adaptations to the constraints of existing in wartime. It is presented here with notes and introduction."--Page 4 of cover