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J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Cry Baby Scientist": What Oppenheimer the Film Gets Wrong about Oppenheimer the Man

The so-called "father of the bomb" helped bring us prematurely into the age of existential risk.
by Haydn Belfield via Vox on July 22, 2023
Nuclear explosion
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Why the Cold War Race for Nuclear Weapons Is Still a Threat

The Cold War may be over, but an arms race continues, even as safeguards once in place have fallen away.
via Retro Report on April 26, 2021
Nuclear weapon mushroom cloud

Mythologizing the Bomb

The beauty of the atomic scientists' calculations hid from them the truly Faustian contract they scratched their names to.
by E. L. Doctorow via The Nation on August 14, 1995
Sign along empty road reading "Private Road No Entry" in Hebrew and English.

How Israel Deceived the U.S. and Built the Bomb

Newly declassified documents reveal how Israel operated under the noses of U.S. inspectors.
by William Burr, Avner Cohen via Foreign Policy on February 7, 2025
Poofs of smoke in the sky.

An “Iron Dome for America”: A History Repeating Itself

How America’s search for total security keeps making the world more dangerous.
by Athena Drakou via The Climate Historian on February 3, 2025
Three identical pictures of the explosion of an atomic bomb with different coloring.

How Literature Predicted and Portrayed the Atom Bomb

On Pierrepoint B. Noyes, H.G. Wells, and the “Superweapons” of early science-fiction.
by Dorian Lynskey via Literary Hub on January 28, 2025
Ronald and Nancy Reagan smiling and waving at victory celebration.

Honey, I Forgot to Duck

Reagan’s capacity to inhabit and generate legend stemmed from his own impulse to substitute pleasing fictions for inconvenient facts.
by Jackson Lears via London Review of Books on January 15, 2025
Ronald Reagan and Paul Nitze.

A Cold Warrior for Our Time

James Graham Wilson makes a compelling case that the under-celebrated example of Paul Nitze is both instructive and worthy of our emulation.
by Max J. Prowant via Law & Liberty on December 9, 2024
A collection of supplies inside of a fallout shelter.

Nine Hot Weeks, with Misgivings

Cataloguing basement fallout shelters in the summer of 1967.
by Monte Davis via 3 Quarks Daily on July 16, 2024
St. Basil's Cathedral spire about to pierce the world like a balloon.

Why Would Anyone Want to Run the World?

The warnings in Cold War history.
by John Lewis Gaddis via Foreign Affairs on June 7, 2024
A few people are gathered at the Atoms For Peace bus, a mobile exhibit about nuclear power operated for a time by the Atomic Energy Commission. c. 1947.
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‘Atoms for Peace’ Was Never All That Peaceful—And the World Is Still Living With the Consequences

The U.S. sought to rebrand nuclear power as a source of peace, but this message helped mask a violent history.
by Tommy Song via Made By History on December 8, 2023
From left: snow, three men, and several vehicles with large tires.

The U.S. Army Tried to Build a Secret Nuclear City under Greenland’s Ice

Long before Greenland’s shifting ice threatened sea level rise, it doomed one of the military’s most audacious Cold War projects.
by George Bass via Washington Post on November 13, 2023
The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, August 9, 1945.

The Atomic Bombings of Japan Were Based on Lies

On the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan, we should remember that deploying the bomb wasn’t necessary to win the war.
by Taylor C. Noakes via Jacobin on August 9, 2023
Nagaski after the atomic bomb.

Did We Really Need to Drop the Bomb?

American leaders called the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki our 'least abhorrent choice,' but there were alternatives to the nuclear attacks.
by Paul Ham via American Heritage on August 6, 2023
Map of the western hemisphere, with red rings circling Cuba to show the range of the country's nuclear missiles.

The Cuban Missile Crisis at 60: An Imperfect Memory, but a Useful Warning

Viewed as public memory, the Crisis has an extraordinarily useful function today: a nuclear warning for the future.
by Sarah E. Robey via Process: A Blog for American History on October 28, 2022
Illustration of John von Neumann surrounded by mathematical formulas, by Valentin Pavageau

John von Neumann Thought He Had the Answers

The father of game theory helped develop the atom bomb—and thought he could calculate when to use it.
by Samanth Subramanian via The New Republic on March 8, 2022
The picture is a photo collage of three men against the background of an atomic bomb explosion. Pictured from left to right is Ed Hall, Ted Hall, and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

One Brother Gave the Soviets the A-Bomb. The Other Got a Medal.

J. Edgar Hoover had both of them in his sights. Yet neither one was ever arrested. The untold story of how the Hall brothers beat the FBI.
by Dave Lindorff via The Nation on January 4, 2022
The First Hague Conference in 1899: A meeting in the Orange Hall of Huis ten Bosch palace – collections of the Imperial War Museums.

Oh, the Humanity

Yale's John Fabian Witt pens a review of Samuel Moyn's new book, Humane.
by John Fabian Witt via Just Security on September 8, 2021

John Wheeler’s H-bomb Blues

In 1953, as a political battle raged over the US’s nuclear future, the physicist lost a classified document on an overnight train from Philadelphia to DC.
by Alex Wellerstein via Physics Today on December 1, 2019
Korean mothers and children cover their ears as they watch a battle.

The Forgotten War

What has fueled the hostility between the U.S. and North Korea for decades?
via Throughline on February 21, 2019
Demonstrators advocate for a nuclear arms freeze.

The Peace Movement Won the INF Treaty. We Must Fight to Preserve It.

In the 1980s, millions of antinuclear activists took to the streets, forcing Western governments to respond to our demands.
by David Cortright via The Nation on November 14, 2018

The Nuclear Fail

Physicist and writer Leo Szilard was vital to the creation of the atomic bomb. He also did everything he could to prevent its use.
by Emily Harnett via Hazlitt on July 30, 2018

Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula: Reviewing the Precedents

Nuclear disarmament talks with the North Koreans go back at least a quarter-century. How did we get to Singapore?
by Joshua Pollack via Arms Control Wonk on June 10, 2018
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30 Years Ago Ronald Reagan Did Something No One Could Have Expected Years Earlier

If we remember correctly how the Cold War ended, we can gain inspiration for how to begin to overcome the “new cold war.”
by David Foglesong via HNN on May 30, 2018
partner

Iran, North Korea, Russia: How the Nuclear Threat Re-emerged

Countries are expanding their nuclear arsenals. So why is the public so complacent about the risk of nuclear catastrophe?
by Noah Madoff, Harvey Burrell via Retro Report on May 15, 2018

The Nuke ‘Treaty That Ended the Cold War’ is Unraveling

The Trump administration signals a game of chicken with Russia, which could mean the death of arms control.
by Scott Ritter via The American Conservative on December 11, 2017

The World Almost Ended One Week in 1983

In 1983, the U.S. simulated a nuclear war with Russia—and narrowly avoided starting a real one. We might not be so lucky next time.
by Nate Jones, J. Peter Scoblic via Slate on April 13, 2017

The Best Intentions

The Manhattan Project scientists tried to advocate for nuclear de-escalation-instead, they unwittingly abetted the Vietnam War.
by Sarah Bridger via Slate on September 4, 2015

Poems of the Manhattan Project

John Canaday's poems look at nuclear weapons from the intimate perspectives of its developers.
via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on September 30, 2014
Zbigniew Brzezinski

The Coldest Cold Warrior

How a sharp-elbowed Polish academic with an unpronounceable name helped defeat the Soviet Union.
by Eric Edelman via The Bulwark on May 23, 2025
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