A IS FOR ABOLITION

Abstract

Designing Denuclearization: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, by Bruce D. Larkin. Transaction Publishers, 2008. 430 pages, $49.95.

Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, George Perkovich and James M. Acton, eds. Carnegie Endowment, 2009. 357 pages, free download.

Keywords:

• Nuclear disarmament
• nuclear abolition
• nuclear weapons

Notes

1. It is possible that people desire useless objects, but utility is usually the most important factor in decisions about implements.

2. See Ward Wilson, “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima,” International Security 31 (Spring 2007), pp. 162–79; and Tsuyoshi Hasagawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005).

3. I am indebted to Barry Blechman and an unpublished position paper for Global Zero for this point.

4. Bruce D. Larkin, Designing Denuclearization (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2008), p. 127.