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Weapons and Hope
Explores ways to live and survive in a nuclear age and examines the key areas of public morality, weapons technology, and international policy
340 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1984
2 people are currently reading
257 people want to read
About the author
Freeman Dyson
70 books390 followersFreeman Dyson was a physicist and educator best known for his speculative work on extraterrestrial civilizations and for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He theorized several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, Dyson tree, Dyson series, and Dyson sphere.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 6, 2022
Really clear, thoughtful discussion of vital scientific issues.
September 7, 2020
Su texto analiza pormenorizadamente distintos enfoques sobre la guerra como fenómeno humano, intercultural y atemporal, una desastroza pero inesquivable constante en el desarrollo de toda clase de sociedades regidas por un número vasto y diverso de ideas. ¿Qué nos inspira a llevarnos hasta esa esquina del matar o morir? ¿En nombre de qué emprendemos o rechazamos estos arranques violentos?
Un libro complejo, brutal y bello que apela a lo mejor del ser humano mientras explora sus peores facetas, dolorosa pero necesaria lectura, sobre todo de sus últimos dos capítulos.
(Próximamanete una reseña más larga)
Un libro complejo, brutal y bello que apela a lo mejor del ser humano mientras explora sus peores facetas, dolorosa pero necesaria lectura, sobre todo de sus últimos dos capítulos.
(Próximamanete una reseña más larga)
November 8, 2025
The author discusses nuclear deterrence and ways of getting out of that predicament in which the world has found itself in back then, mid-1980s.
He discusses defensive technologies (such as SDI) and turning to civilian usage of nuclear energy rather than military usage.
Looking at the book from the vantage point of 2025 when I'm actually writing this review, it is also prophetic.
Anyone interested in nuclear deterrence, avoidance of WW3 and what optimistic view can be taken of nuclear power is encouraged to read this book. 5/5
He discusses defensive technologies (such as SDI) and turning to civilian usage of nuclear energy rather than military usage.
Looking at the book from the vantage point of 2025 when I'm actually writing this review, it is also prophetic.
Anyone interested in nuclear deterrence, avoidance of WW3 and what optimistic view can be taken of nuclear power is encouraged to read this book. 5/5
November 14, 2018
The sequel to Dyson's excellent autobiography "Disturbing the Universe", "Weapons and Hope" combines chapters about his father's inadvertent career as the World War One aliies' authority on the use of hand grenades with chapters dealing with truth, ignorance, and deliberate fables about how nuclear weapons ought to be used and defended against.
Dyson's an authority on the subject - a mathematical physicist whose career began in the US nuclear weapons development laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, he collaborated with some of the greatest nuclear weapons designers on Earth. He is most famous for, along with maverick nuclear weapons designer Theodore Taylor, having come up with Project Orion, a proposal to use nuclear detonations to propel huge spacecraft at enormous speeds. Variations on this concept are still being seriously studied now. He also helped prevent what would have been the disastrous use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War, which would not have set the Communists back much, but set a precedent for the wide and routine use of nuclear weapons in war, lowering the threshold for their use.
In this book, Professor Dyson explores how national decision-makers think about nuclear war, and how this isn't always well-considered or intelligent thought. He also applies the same criticisms to how leaders in various peace and disarmament movements think about nuclear war. The result's an unflinching assessment of how we think about actually using (or defending ourselves from) the world's still-massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
In a world that is re-entering a nuclear arms race, this book is must reading for everyone who votes.
I say this as someone whose skepticism about the usefulness of arms control seems to be vindicated by the steady increase of the Russian and Chinese strategic nuclear arsenals, but recognizes that the best response to those increases may actually be not to buy more and deadlier nuclear weapons and delivery systems, but to limit the damage enemy nuclear weapons can do. Here, Dyson has plenty to say, and it's all worth reading.
Dyson and I do agree that the Swiss have been more intelligent than we have been - they invested considerable money in nuclear bomb shelters, modifying building codes to require them in every new home and creating massive underground shelters with their own hospitals and other facilities to protect their people from nuclear war all around them in Europe. While these things aren't cheap, their cost is incredibly small compared to the new bombers and missiles we're about to buy, and a national shelter system would do much to make other nations more reluctant to attack the United States. The Russians and Chinese have excellent nuclear shelters for their people, and one day they may consider - if we don't take steps to protect our population - that they have much less to lose from a nuclear war than we do - and start one.
Even if you don't agree with everything Freeman Dyson might say, you'll be much better informed on the subject of nuclear weapons in our society after reading this book.
Dyson's an authority on the subject - a mathematical physicist whose career began in the US nuclear weapons development laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, he collaborated with some of the greatest nuclear weapons designers on Earth. He is most famous for, along with maverick nuclear weapons designer Theodore Taylor, having come up with Project Orion, a proposal to use nuclear detonations to propel huge spacecraft at enormous speeds. Variations on this concept are still being seriously studied now. He also helped prevent what would have been the disastrous use of tactical nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War, which would not have set the Communists back much, but set a precedent for the wide and routine use of nuclear weapons in war, lowering the threshold for their use.
In this book, Professor Dyson explores how national decision-makers think about nuclear war, and how this isn't always well-considered or intelligent thought. He also applies the same criticisms to how leaders in various peace and disarmament movements think about nuclear war. The result's an unflinching assessment of how we think about actually using (or defending ourselves from) the world's still-massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
In a world that is re-entering a nuclear arms race, this book is must reading for everyone who votes.
I say this as someone whose skepticism about the usefulness of arms control seems to be vindicated by the steady increase of the Russian and Chinese strategic nuclear arsenals, but recognizes that the best response to those increases may actually be not to buy more and deadlier nuclear weapons and delivery systems, but to limit the damage enemy nuclear weapons can do. Here, Dyson has plenty to say, and it's all worth reading.
Dyson and I do agree that the Swiss have been more intelligent than we have been - they invested considerable money in nuclear bomb shelters, modifying building codes to require them in every new home and creating massive underground shelters with their own hospitals and other facilities to protect their people from nuclear war all around them in Europe. While these things aren't cheap, their cost is incredibly small compared to the new bombers and missiles we're about to buy, and a national shelter system would do much to make other nations more reluctant to attack the United States. The Russians and Chinese have excellent nuclear shelters for their people, and one day they may consider - if we don't take steps to protect our population - that they have much less to lose from a nuclear war than we do - and start one.
Even if you don't agree with everything Freeman Dyson might say, you'll be much better informed on the subject of nuclear weapons in our society after reading this book.
July 19, 2010
This book is sort of a sequel to the extremely good 'Disturbing the Univierse', though focused on nuclear disarmament. It is very thought-provoking not only for the material in it in the context of the time it was published (1983), but because it constantly made me wonder what differences an updated version would have.
I think one misconception of the author's was to view the Soviet Union as having rough technological parity with the United States, and any developments for example along the lines of ballistic missile defense or precision guided munitions could be matched by the other side. One of the disarmament strategies Dyson suggests is a shift from offensive weapons of mass destruction to precision defensive weapons- but I think the U.S. could achieve this shift much more easily than the Soviet Union could have, and they would realize this and resist the change.
A world where the numbers of bombs held by any country is very low could be a world where ballistic missile defense could work. It seems like the U.S. since the end of the Cold War likes to believe the left-over arsenals of the U.S. and former Soviet Union no longer matter, or can be left to gradual reductions, and only small attacks from newly nuclear countries are the main danger and we can deploy BMD against them. But Russia still has its weapons, and BMD is still provocative in that it can lead to an unending and expensive arms race of offensive and defensive weapons system that are completely useless in real wars.
An early chapter discusses the British focus on strategic bombing during WWII, and suggests that the war could have been won a year earlier had the same resources been put into weapons aimed at achieving specific tactical military objectives- a tank destroyed on the battlefield has much greater and immediate worth than the slight and temporary reduction of tank production resulting from bombs dropped on a factory.
In the same chapter he mentions that every bombing raid into Germany would attempt to set off a firestorm, but that they were poorly understood and varying environmental conditions would preclude their occurrence. I think in an alternate history where nuclear weapons were not developed the superpowers would have studied firestorms intensely and would have perfected weapons and delivery systems to start them on command with conventional explosives.
pg 208 - a small scale example of successful non-violent resistance in the French village of Chambon Sur Lignon against the Nazis.
pg 192 - George Kennan warns that the Soviet Union could be a far prefereable adversary to possible replacment governments if it were to collapse.
I think one misconception of the author's was to view the Soviet Union as having rough technological parity with the United States, and any developments for example along the lines of ballistic missile defense or precision guided munitions could be matched by the other side. One of the disarmament strategies Dyson suggests is a shift from offensive weapons of mass destruction to precision defensive weapons- but I think the U.S. could achieve this shift much more easily than the Soviet Union could have, and they would realize this and resist the change.
A world where the numbers of bombs held by any country is very low could be a world where ballistic missile defense could work. It seems like the U.S. since the end of the Cold War likes to believe the left-over arsenals of the U.S. and former Soviet Union no longer matter, or can be left to gradual reductions, and only small attacks from newly nuclear countries are the main danger and we can deploy BMD against them. But Russia still has its weapons, and BMD is still provocative in that it can lead to an unending and expensive arms race of offensive and defensive weapons system that are completely useless in real wars.
An early chapter discusses the British focus on strategic bombing during WWII, and suggests that the war could have been won a year earlier had the same resources been put into weapons aimed at achieving specific tactical military objectives- a tank destroyed on the battlefield has much greater and immediate worth than the slight and temporary reduction of tank production resulting from bombs dropped on a factory.
In the same chapter he mentions that every bombing raid into Germany would attempt to set off a firestorm, but that they were poorly understood and varying environmental conditions would preclude their occurrence. I think in an alternate history where nuclear weapons were not developed the superpowers would have studied firestorms intensely and would have perfected weapons and delivery systems to start them on command with conventional explosives.
pg 208 - a small scale example of successful non-violent resistance in the French village of Chambon Sur Lignon against the Nazis.
pg 192 - George Kennan warns that the Soviet Union could be a far prefereable adversary to possible replacment governments if it were to collapse.
February 21, 2015
An enlightening perspective on Nuclear disarmament before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews