Nuclear War book by Annie Jacobsen

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‘Nuclear war happens in seconds and minutes, not days and weeks’: How I researched the end of the world

Nazi Scientists in America

Operation Paperclip

'Indefatigable reporting . . . it has become newly topical, too' Telegraph 
 
In this engrossing and deeply disturbing exposé from the bestselling author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen tells the gripping story of a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. 
 
In the chaos following the Second World War, the US government faced a critical decision: what to do with the great scientific minds of the Third Reich. Many were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder. Nevertheless, the US government secretly decided that their knowledge of rocketry and medical advances were vital to the outcome of the Cold War. 
 
Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and dossiers discovered in archives across the world, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into one of the most startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secrets of the twentieth century. 
 
‘Chilling and riveting . . . a remarkable achievement of investigative reporting and historical writing’ Boston Globe 
 
‘The most in-depth account yet of the lives of Paperclip recruits and their American counterparts’ New York Times Book Review

Important, superbly written. . . . Jacobsen’s book allows us to explore these questions with the ultimate tool: hard evidence. She confronts us with the full extent of Paperclip’s deal with the devil, and it’s difficult to look away.

With Annie Jacobsen’s Operation Paperclip for the first time the enormity of the effort has been laid bare. The result is a book that is at once chilling and riveting, and one that raises substantial and difficult questions about national honor and security. . . .This book is a remarkable achievement of investigative reporting and historical writing, but it is a moral force as well as a literary tour de force.

The most in-depth account yet of the lives of Paperclip recruits and their American counterparts. . . . Jacobsen deftly untangles the myriad German and American agencies and personnel involved. . . . More gripping and skillfully rendered are the stories of American and British officials who scoured defeated Germany for Nazi scientists and their research.

Darkly picaresque. . . . Jacobsen persuasively argues that the mindset of the former Nazi scientists who ended up working for the American government may have exacerbated Cold War paranoia.

Jacobsen uses newly released documents, court transcripts, and family-held archives to give the fullest accounting yet of this endeavor.

The moral issues it raises are disturbing and even perhaps profound.

Annie Jacobsen’s Operation Paperclip is a superb investigation, showing how the U.S. government recruited the Nazis’ best scientists to work for Uncle Sam on a stunning scale. Sobering and brilliantly researched.

Operation Paperclip combines indefatigable reporting, breathless thrillerisms and peculiar syntax . . . newly topical

Annie Jacobsen is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. A 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, her other books include Operation Paperclip, Phenomena and The Pentagon's Brain, and have been translated into 26 languages. She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two sons.

In the chaos following the Second World War, the US government faced a critical decision: what to do with the great scientific minds of the Third Reich. Many were accused of war crimes, and others had stood trial at Nuremberg; one was convicted of mass murder. Nevertheless, the US government secretly decided that their knowledge of rocketry and medical advances were vital to the outcome of the Cold War. 
 
Drawing on exclusive interviews with dozens of Paperclip family members, colleagues, and interrogators, and dossiers discovered in archives across the world, Annie Jacobsen follows more than a dozen German scientists through their postwar lives and into one of the most startling, complex, nefarious, and jealously guarded government secrets of the twentieth century. 
 
‘Chilling and riveting ... a remarkable achievement of investigative reporting and historical writing’ Boston Globe 
 
‘The most in-depth account yet of the lives of Paperclip recruits and their American counterparts’ New York Times Book Review

An Uncensored History of DARPA

The Pentagon’s Brain

From the bestselling author of Nuclear War: A Scenario. 
 
Discover the untold story of America's most powerful military science agency. 
 
In this first-ever history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful and most controversial military science R&D agency, Sunday Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to demystify DARPA, ‘the Pentagon's brain’. 
 
Since its Cold War inception in 1958, DARPA’s innovations have shaped the modern world – from its role in the development of the Internet and GPS to stealth technology. Yet, the agency's cutting-edge projects remain cloaked in secrecy, often outpacing public domain advancements by decades. In this groundbreaking account, Jacobsen uncovers DARPA's hidden history, triumphs and controversies, exploring its role in pioneering technologies that redefine warfare and society while questioning the wisdom of allowing DARPA to determine what lies ahead.

In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain," from its Cold War inception in 1958 to the present.This is the book on DARPA -- a compelling narrative about this clandestine intersection of science and the American military and the often frightening results.

US Government Investigations into ESP and Psychokinesis

Phenomena

From the author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, this is the gripping story of how a select group of scientists, under the watchful eye of the CIA, sought to harness the power of the mind as tools of espionage and warfare. 
 
‘A well-researched and fascinating tale’ Forbes 
 
This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. 
 
For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. 
 
The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves. 
 
Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? 
 
Phenomena is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.

This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. 
 
For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. 
 
The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves. 
 
Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? 
 
Phenomena is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.

A Scenario

Nuclear War

The Sunday Times bestselling edge-of-your-seat exploration of what would happen in the event of nuclear war, perfect for readers of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. 
 
Nuclear war begins with a blip on a radar screen. 
This is a minute-by-minute account of what comes next. 
It has to be read to be believed. 
 
'A stomach-clenching, multi-perspective, ticking-clock, geopolitical thriller' Forbes 
'Dangerously plausible – and it reads like a thriller' Sunday Times 
'These are scenes straight out of Dr Strangelove' Telegraph 
 
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. 
 
Until now, no one outside official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilization. 
 
Decisions that affect hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, in the knowledge that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction. 
 
Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, been privy to the response plans, and taken responsibility for crucial decisions, this is the only account of what a nuclear exchange would look like. 
 
Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever. 
 
'This terrifying book is a must-read for every world leader' Mother Jones 
'At once methodical and vivid' The Economist 
'Tells a terrifying story in a devastatingly straightforward way' Guardian 
 
* A New York Times bestseller (March 2024) and a Sunday Times bestseller (April 2024). Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2024, the UK's premier annual prize for non-fiction books.

As gripping as any thriller, her book brilliantly portrays the horrific reality of nuclear war.

A stomach-clenching, multi-perspective, ticking-clock, geopolitical thriller rooted in the seeds of our own destruction, planted nearly 80 years ago at the Trinity test site by the scientists of the Manhattan Project who brazenly dared to rip the building blocks of our universe apart... I couldn’t put the thing down, feverishly turning page after page until I finished it on the plane ride home... Nuclear War: A Scenario should be required reading for everyone alive today.

Books like Annie Jacobsen’s gripping Nuclear War: A Scenario are essential if you want to understand the complex and disturbing details that go into a civilization-destroying decision to drop the Bomb on an enemy.

Based on hundreds of interviews with many retired security officials and more-or-less declassified information in the public domain, what it captures brilliantly is the emotional chaos into which leaders would be plunged in such a situation.... These are scenes straight out of Dr Strangelove.

This terrifying book is a must-read for every world leader.

Extraordinary... Her book delivers more detail than has been available to the public before... Terrifying.

Using hard data from top military, government, and scientific sources, and brilliantly weaving in historical facts and technical data, Annie Jacobsen masterfully explains the nuclear issue in riveting story form, turning her readers into experts on the one issue that must concern us all. I guarantee that even the most knowledgeable readers will learn something, if not a lot. Everyone, especially politicians and heads of state, must read this important and very timely book. I cannot recommend it enough.

Carlos Umaña, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Not one to read if you have trouble sleeping.

At once methodical and vivid. In documenting the minutiae of the apocalypse, the writing is redolent of 'Hiroshima', a seminal article by John Hersey published in the New Yorker in 1946.

In Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen, gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail…Terrifying.

A vivid account... Jacobsen lucidly lays out complex information, based on well-referenced research and interviews with credible experts... The current global arrangements for managing risk and preventing cataclysm cannot be taken for granted.

Jacobsen seeks to break through jargon and details in order to tell a terrifying story in a devastatingly straightforward way.

In a horrific minute-by-minute overview, Jacobsen brings to life the insane and impossible pressures heaped on decision-makers - and the doomsday ending for humanity. Maybe we all need to learn to start worrying about the bomb.

'The attack is hypothetical, but the resultant scenarios are based on interviews with military experts — and they’re terrifying... An undeniably gripping narrative. I can see why the Baillie Gifford judges were so hooked.'

The opening pages are terrifying, not only because they describe a city I call home, but because, as a nuclear policy scholar, I know that her description is grounded in reality... This book is critical - and I hope more readers pick it up. Jacobsen is a masterful storyteller.

What readers are saying about Nuclear War: 
 
'At times I felt as if I was reading fiction and had to keep reminding myself that it's fact' 
 
'It reads like a thriller... a brilliant read and impressive feat of research and storytelling' 
 
'This book is a must-read for anyone who thinks nuclear weapons are the problem of a bygone era' 
 
'Exceptionally well researched, the author’s sources are impeccable, ably supported by technical information... a hugely powerful, sobering and compelling read' 
 
'Clearly very well researched and well sourced. 10/10' 
 
'A hugely informative piece of work that gives an enlightening insight into the world we live in today'

Up to now, no one outside of official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilisation as we know it. Frantic calls over secure lines work to confirm the worst as armoured helicopters are scrambled to evacuate the chosen few to secure bunkers. One nuclear missile will provoke two dozen in return. Decisions over hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, knowing that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction. 
 
Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts, Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.

Annie Jacobsen

Very effective . . . you might argue that her books on nuclear and biological warfare establish a new genre we might call New Fear Unlocked . . . all too credible . . . the author's timing is impeccable.

Read this book. It is a better briefing on the problem than the one we received in Downing Street six years ago.

Energetic, detailed and disturbing . . . an engrossing, plausible book

A persuasive and unnerving argument.

Graphic and sobering . . . Jacobsen is back with another scenario that promises to be even more ghastly and perversely thrilling than [Nuclear War: A Scenario].

A scrupulously realistic book about the inconceivable…This is important work...Biological War is an indictment of the weapons programs that created our discomfiting reality, and of a leadership that has allowed it to continue.

This book moves like a meteor… Biological War is a heavily researched book about contagious and potentially civilization-ending pathogens…That so many were willing to talk to her, and have their names affixed to this book, indicates the esteem in which she is held.

A compelling and deeply unsettling examination of how biological warfare could shape the next global catastrophe . . . Biological War is difficult to put down, but it is even harder to stop thinking about once finished.

Biological War: A Scenario will scare your pants off, but in a deliciously readable fashion.

It's gripping and very, very scary how this scenario plays out.

A terrifying account of what lurks on the nightmarish fringes of reality, written with the pace of a Hollywood thriller.

A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario. 
 
It would be only a matter of days before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for survival. The fallout: mass death, societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. 
 
There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small and malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result. 
 
This is what could happen; a roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.

Annie Jacobsen

Praise for Biological War

Very effective . . . you might argue that her books on nuclear and biological warfare establish a new genre we might call New Fear Unlocked . . . all too credible . . . the author's timing is impeccable.

Read this book. It is a better briefing on the problem than the one we received in Downing Street six years ago.

Energetic, detailed and disturbing . . . an engrossing, plausible book

Very effective . . . you might argue that her books on nuclear and biological warfare establish a new genre we might call New Fear Unlocked . . . all too credible . . . the author's timing is impeccable.

Read this book. It is a better briefing on the problem than the one we received in Downing Street six years ago.

Energetic, detailed and disturbing . . . an engrossing, plausible book

Very effective . . . you might argue that her books on nuclear and biological warfare establish a new genre we might call New Fear Unlocked . . . all too credible . . . the author's timing is impeccable.

Read this book. It is a better briefing on the problem than the one we received in Downing Street six years ago.

Energetic, detailed and disturbing . . . an engrossing, plausible book

Books by Annie Jacobsen

Series by Annie Jacobsen

Annie Jacobsen

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‘Nuclear war happens in seconds and minutes, not days and weeks’: How I researched the end of the world

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