Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Audiobook (abridged)9 hours
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
Written by David Hoffman
Narrated by Bob Walter
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
"A tour de force of investigative history." -Steve Coll
The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union-a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.
The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the twentieth century the two superpowers had perfected the science of mass destruction and possessed nuclear weapons with the combined power of a million Hiroshimas. What's more, a Soviet biological warfare machine was ready to produce bacteria and viruses to sicken and kill millions. In The Dead Hand, a thrilling narrative history drawing on new archives and original research and interviews, David E. Hoffman reveals how presidents, scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and spies confronted the danger and changed the course of history.
The Dead Hand captures the inside story in both the United States and the Soviet Union, giving us an urgent and intimate account of the last decade of the arms race. With access to secret Kremlin documents, Hoffman chronicles Soviet internal deliberations that have long been hidden. He reveals that weapons designers in 1985 laid a massive "Star Wars" program on the desk of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to compete with President Reagan, but Gorbachev refused to build it. He unmasks the cover-up of the Soviet biological weapons program. He tells the exclusive story of one Soviet microbiologist's quest to build a genetically engineered super-germ-it would cause a mild illness, a deceptive recovery, then a second, fatal attack. And he details the frightening history of the Doomsday Machine, known as the Dead Hand, which would launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the Soviet leaders were wiped out.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the dangers remained. Soon rickety trains were hauling unsecured nuclear warheads across the Russian steppe; tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium lay unguarded in warehouses; and microbiologists and bomb designers were scavenging for food to feed their families.
The Dead Hand offers fresh and startling insights into Reagan and Gorbachev, the two key figures of the end of the Cold War, and draws colorful, unforgettable portraits of many others who struggled, often valiantly, to save the world from the most terrifying weapons known to man.
From the Hardcover edition.
The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union-a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.
The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the twentieth century the two superpowers had perfected the science of mass destruction and possessed nuclear weapons with the combined power of a million Hiroshimas. What's more, a Soviet biological warfare machine was ready to produce bacteria and viruses to sicken and kill millions. In The Dead Hand, a thrilling narrative history drawing on new archives and original research and interviews, David E. Hoffman reveals how presidents, scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and spies confronted the danger and changed the course of history.
The Dead Hand captures the inside story in both the United States and the Soviet Union, giving us an urgent and intimate account of the last decade of the arms race. With access to secret Kremlin documents, Hoffman chronicles Soviet internal deliberations that have long been hidden. He reveals that weapons designers in 1985 laid a massive "Star Wars" program on the desk of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to compete with President Reagan, but Gorbachev refused to build it. He unmasks the cover-up of the Soviet biological weapons program. He tells the exclusive story of one Soviet microbiologist's quest to build a genetically engineered super-germ-it would cause a mild illness, a deceptive recovery, then a second, fatal attack. And he details the frightening history of the Doomsday Machine, known as the Dead Hand, which would launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the Soviet leaders were wiped out.
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the dangers remained. Soon rickety trains were hauling unsecured nuclear warheads across the Russian steppe; tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium lay unguarded in warehouses; and microbiologists and bomb designers were scavenging for food to feed their families.
The Dead Hand offers fresh and startling insights into Reagan and Gorbachev, the two key figures of the end of the Cold War, and draws colorful, unforgettable portraits of many others who struggled, often valiantly, to save the world from the most terrifying weapons known to man.
From the Hardcover edition.
Unavailable
Related to The Dead Hand
Related audiobooks
Alien World Order: The Reptilian Plan to Divide and Conquer the Human Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Breakthrough [Dramatized Adaptation] Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Abyss: Nuclear Crisis Cuba 1962 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Doomsday Warrior [Dramatized Adaptation] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Second Variety: Unabridged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Victory - Volume 2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gemini Effect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Secret Leviathan: Secrecy and State Capacity under Soviet Communism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChurchill's American Arsenal: The Partnership Behind the Innovations that Won World War Two Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51968: The Year That Rocked the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenegades: Hitler's Englishmen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5GCHQ: Centenary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Infinity Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cold War: A World History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gangsters vs. Nazis: How Jewish Mobsters Battled Nazis in Wartime America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yalta: The Price of Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5British Traitors: Betrayal and Treachery in the Twentieth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bomb and America's Missile Age Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shortest History of the Soviet Union Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVictory - Volume 4 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Scarecrow: A Shane Schofield Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Apocalypse Any Day Now: Deep Underground with America's Doomsday Preppers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Weapons of the Gods: How Ancient Alien Civilizations Almost Destroyed the Earth Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
International Relations For You
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who Rules the World? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ghosts of Langley: Into the CIA's Heart of Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Because We Say So Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inside the Middle East: Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/563 Documents the Government Doesn't Want You to Read Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Conscience of a Conservative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex and World Peace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Case for Israel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5China's Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breaking History: A White House Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diplomacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Dead Hand
Rating: 4.636363636363637 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
33 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent treatment of the razor's edge we rode toward partial nuclear disarmament.
The most revealing nightmare was the pursuit of the Soviets towards developing and recreating known biological pathogens resistant to any known treatment.
Good refresher on the Gorbachev Reagan Summits and the bio on Gorbachev.
If this is new to you I think you won't be disappointed. If you're familiar with most of this just living through this history you'll find how close we came to all out nuclear war. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It was a good read. Gave information on the soviets. After a while the subject gets a bit bland. Hoped the information would shock and awe but it didn't.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was hoping for more current status while this spent most of its time covering the 80s.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was really good when it is one of my favorite books
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a good book to know about the different negotiations on the 80s peak of the Cold War. Also it gives you a reflection on arms control.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5If this is only nine hours it is an abridged version.