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Biological War: A Scenario
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Expected 28 Jul 26Win a free print copy of this book!
3 days and 22:40:07
20 copies available
U.S. only
From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her reporting: biological warfare.
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 from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.
The mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other dystopia.
Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear 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 something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result.
This is what could happen; a ticking-clock 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.
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 from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.
The mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other dystopia.
Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear 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 something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result.
This is what could happen; a ticking-clock 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.
432 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication July 28, 2026
About the author
Annie Jacobsen
17 books3,968 followersANNIE JACOBSEN is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author. Her books include: AREA 51; OPERATION PAPERCLIP; THE PENTAGON’S BRAIN; PHENOMENA; SURPRISE, KILL VANISH; and FIRST PLATOON.
Her newest book, NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO, is an international bestseller.
Jacobsen’s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, Apple, and Amazon. She has appeared on countless TV programs and media platforms—from PBS Newshour to Joe Rogan—discussing war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security.
She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy’s JACK RYAN.
Jacobsen graduated from Princeton University where she was Captain of the Women’s Ice Hockey Team. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Kevin and their two sons.
Her newest book, NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO, is an international bestseller.
Jacobsen’s books have been named Best of the Year and Most Anticipated by outlets including The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, Apple, and Amazon. She has appeared on countless TV programs and media platforms—from PBS Newshour to Joe Rogan—discussing war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security.
She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy’s JACK RYAN.
Jacobsen graduated from Princeton University where she was Captain of the Women’s Ice Hockey Team. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Kevin and their two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Want to Read
December 14, 2025i need this NOWWWW PLEASEEEE 😭❤️🩹
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
First and foremost, thank you to the publisher for an advance copy of this book via NetGalley.
Secondly, how does Annie Jacobsen craft such engrossing stories of futures? I read Nuclear War: A Scenario and was equally enthralled. And honestly pretty horrified, but not for the reasons you might think. It's what makes me say with confidence that if you're picking up Biological War or wondering whether it's a good read, it is. It wasn't because it reads at the breakneck speed of a thriller or spy novel, but because at its core it's a philosophy book.
Jacobsen asks existential questions within the context of the world we inhabit everyday. Mis-, dis-, and mal-information in tension with credible sources or social and government infrastructures built on values that events like a plague might test the hell out of. Most importantly though the book asks: what it is that the human race has prioritized in the creation of things like "chimera" pathogens, or nuclear sites that require human upkeep to prevent a nuclear meltdown (that would make Chernobyl look like a Christmas cracker with a treat inside), and more, on the simple basis that we thought an enemy might be doing the same and needed to be prepared.
It's easy enough to dismiss the book as fodder for preppers, but I recently read another advance copy of Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor's forthcoming book End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, where it gains a little more traction in the realm of how people think everyday. Layer this with the book (still on my TBR list, but getting to it this week or next) On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything which is about the monied classes influencing the world, and something like another book I'm currently reading, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age about the "Great Replacement Theory", alongside Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right about billionaires exacting political influence. Taken together, you see a very plausible scenario unfold.
Humans are smart. But we're also not exactly clever, are we? We still cannot understand that mutually assured destruction is not a great strategy. So we build these weapons of both biological and nuclear horror. Jacobsen isn't illuminating something we didn't already fear, but she gives us people, departments, locations, and contexts within which they meet their litmus tests for salience. And it gives us reason to believe more strongly in science than those who de-cry its seeming misalignment with religiously fundamental ones. What I enjoyed about this book is that it is one scenario. But with the knowledge of how many moving parts and people there are, including ways to intercept these horrors, I'm more hopeful than not. Something else that resonated strongly after reading is the way that the future becomes untenable on the basis of trust in the institutions that do their best, run by people. Billionaires can only do so much and wield so much influence. At the heart of humanity's in Jacobsen's book, destruction is not billionaires hanging out on a remote island (as with Jeff Bezos, and Ivanka Trump's apocalyptic island neighbourhood getaway). It is people not trusting factual and credible information. As someone who works at a public library it is the most obvious takeaway, though I know others will get something else from it. But what greater threat to a livable planet is there, than people believing in conspiracy theories with no merit, that require the creation of an enemy in your neighbour because the unknown is a greater threat than their humanity in an hour of need/fear/desperation? It would seem that the horsemen of the apocalypse are not so biblical, but that we become them through an ongoing enchantment with mis-, dis-, and mal-information narratives.
I highly recommend reading this book. I'm sure that bestseller lists and reviews will do the work of taste-making. If however, you're someone who mulls around the existential questions in occasional earnest amidst a world that seems more filled with fear, and hatred than you can really recall, it's a very good read. There is hope in it, beyond the iterant worries one might assign with a title like Biological War.
Secondly, how does Annie Jacobsen craft such engrossing stories of futures? I read Nuclear War: A Scenario and was equally enthralled. And honestly pretty horrified, but not for the reasons you might think. It's what makes me say with confidence that if you're picking up Biological War or wondering whether it's a good read, it is. It wasn't because it reads at the breakneck speed of a thriller or spy novel, but because at its core it's a philosophy book.
Jacobsen asks existential questions within the context of the world we inhabit everyday. Mis-, dis-, and mal-information in tension with credible sources or social and government infrastructures built on values that events like a plague might test the hell out of. Most importantly though the book asks: what it is that the human race has prioritized in the creation of things like "chimera" pathogens, or nuclear sites that require human upkeep to prevent a nuclear meltdown (that would make Chernobyl look like a Christmas cracker with a treat inside), and more, on the simple basis that we thought an enemy might be doing the same and needed to be prepared.
It's easy enough to dismiss the book as fodder for preppers, but I recently read another advance copy of Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor's forthcoming book End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World, where it gains a little more traction in the realm of how people think everyday. Layer this with the book (still on my TBR list, but getting to it this week or next) On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything which is about the monied classes influencing the world, and something like another book I'm currently reading, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age about the "Great Replacement Theory", alongside Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right about billionaires exacting political influence. Taken together, you see a very plausible scenario unfold.
Humans are smart. But we're also not exactly clever, are we? We still cannot understand that mutually assured destruction is not a great strategy. So we build these weapons of both biological and nuclear horror. Jacobsen isn't illuminating something we didn't already fear, but she gives us people, departments, locations, and contexts within which they meet their litmus tests for salience. And it gives us reason to believe more strongly in science than those who de-cry its seeming misalignment with religiously fundamental ones. What I enjoyed about this book is that it is one scenario. But with the knowledge of how many moving parts and people there are, including ways to intercept these horrors, I'm more hopeful than not. Something else that resonated strongly after reading is the way that the future becomes untenable on the basis of trust in the institutions that do their best, run by people. Billionaires can only do so much and wield so much influence. At the heart of humanity's in Jacobsen's book, destruction is not billionaires hanging out on a remote island (as with Jeff Bezos, and Ivanka Trump's apocalyptic island neighbourhood getaway). It is people not trusting factual and credible information. As someone who works at a public library it is the most obvious takeaway, though I know others will get something else from it. But what greater threat to a livable planet is there, than people believing in conspiracy theories with no merit, that require the creation of an enemy in your neighbour because the unknown is a greater threat than their humanity in an hour of need/fear/desperation? It would seem that the horsemen of the apocalypse are not so biblical, but that we become them through an ongoing enchantment with mis-, dis-, and mal-information narratives.
I highly recommend reading this book. I'm sure that bestseller lists and reviews will do the work of taste-making. If however, you're someone who mulls around the existential questions in occasional earnest amidst a world that seems more filled with fear, and hatred than you can really recall, it's a very good read. There is hope in it, beyond the iterant worries one might assign with a title like Biological War.
Review of advance copy
Well, I wrote this book - and here's what I think: A lab accident, a highly contagious, genetically modified pathogen, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In BIOLOGICAL WAR: A SCENARIO - based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility - I examine this very scenario. It would be only a matter of days from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence. The fallout: mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other words: dystopia.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Annie Jacobsen never fails to deliver edge-of-your-seat reading that will enlighten and terrify you at the same time. She tackles the hard subjects that are around us every day, but unseen, until they are not, showing us time and again that we have created or modified things that once created, we cannot control. The object lesson is always the same: just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Man will seemingly never run out of new and devastating ways to destroy each other, and the genie never gets put back into the bottle. Jacobsen puts you in the moment, you are there, in every heroic act and each rally.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is a terrifying depiction of a scenario where a highly contagious and genetically modified version of the plague is leaked accidentally from a lab. Much in the same vein of the authors previous book, Nuclear War a Scenario, it covers the spread and breakdown of society at an alarming rate. Highly cautionary and well researched, this shows the terror that can occur with already existing potential. As with everything else this author has written I would highly recommend.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
There is something uniquely horrifying about the thought of mutated plague unleashed on the populace. This book was scarier than a lot of the horror novels I've read, and it will definitely stick with me for a long time. Watch the downfall of humanity in 'real time', in a shockingly short amount of time. Even more horrifying, Annie Jacobsen suggests this is one of the BETTER scenarios, and I'm just going to go ahead and have nightmares about that for a while.
June 22, 2026
Incredible book. Terrifying, but incredible. Not fiction, but it reads like it out of pure mental need. You find that you want this to be science fiction. Not plausible reality. But it is. I got this as an advanced copy online and will probably reread it again after it is released.
Annie Jacobsen’s amazing research makes this book so much more powerful.
Annie Jacobsen’s amazing research makes this book so much more powerful.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
This book was extremely well researched and constructed with horrifying plausibility. A must read for modern era rabbit-hole enthusiats who aren't afraid to to lose a little sleep.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ and the publisher for an advance reading copy!
P.S. Do not make the same mistake I did and read this while suffering from a stomach bug.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ and the publisher for an advance reading copy!
P.S. Do not make the same mistake I did and read this while suffering from a stomach bug.
Want to Read
June 26, 2026Curious how this compares to The Stand.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I loved Nuclear War: A Scenario, and this one might be even better. Not just because it is a more probable scenario, but because one can see the effects of COVID mistakes and paranoias reverberating throughout. Today, people are worried about hantavirus and ebola. Understandably. And we have only just started to understand the extent of the impact a weaponised biological pathogen might pose to humanity.
My only criticism is that twice it is said that COVID was a lab leak. Although this may be true, expert opinions published in the journals Science and Nature assert that is only one of four hypotheses as to the origin of COVID. Given the commitment to accuracy in the book, it surprised me to see this claim made without additional context.
My only criticism is that twice it is said that COVID was a lab leak. Although this may be true, expert opinions published in the journals Science and Nature assert that is only one of four hypotheses as to the origin of COVID. Given the commitment to accuracy in the book, it surprised me to see this claim made without additional context.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews