Nuclear Paranoia

by Chas Newkey-Burden

Pocket Essentials is a dynamic series of books that are concise, lively, and easy to read. Packed with facts as well as expert opinions, each book has all the key information you need to know about such popular topics as film, television, cult fiction, history, and more. Nuclear paranoia has been around as long as the bomb itself and has enjoyed a colossal influence on popular culture. Films like Dr Strangelove, The War Game and Threads played out our worst fears. The bomb has also been featured in pop songs like "Two Tribes" and television shows from The Simpsons to The Young Ones. This book is a history of the nuclear bomb and how it's scared us to death. It includes analysis of the effects of significant moments in nuclear history including Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the Cuban missile crisis, Chernobyl, and Star Wars. It also includes reviews and analysis of nuclear war films and other instances of nuke paranoia in pop music, television, literature, and fashion.

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

Chas Newkey-Burden is a British journalist and author. His books include The Reduced History of Britain, Great Email Disasters and Not In My Name: A Compendium Of Modern Hypocrisy (co-written with Julie Burchill). He has also written unauthorised biographies of Simon Cowell, Paris Hilton, Amy Winehouse, Alexandra Burke and six official publications for Arsenal football club.

He has written for publications including The Guardian, Four Four Two, Total Football, Time Out, Attitude and The Big Issue; and internet sites including Ynetnews, The First Post and Guardian Blogs. A former Contributing Editor to Loaded magazine and former editor of the football website icons.com, where he was also Dennis Bergkamp's official biographer. Interviewees include David Beckham, Ricky Gervais, Frank Lampard, Rachel Stevens and James Bourne.

Newkey-Burden has discussed his books, football news and the Middle East on TV and radio shows including Sky News, CNN, BBC Breakfast News, The Today Programme on Radio 4, Five Live Breakfast, TalkSport, Capital Gold and BBC Radio London. He was featured on the BBC 2 documentary Cold War Kids, the Sky One show Celebrities On Heat and The Biography Channel and Fuse Television's documentaries on Amy Winehouse.

Newkey-Burden has a blog, entitled OyVaGoy, in which he describes himself as 'philosemitic' and posts opinions firmly in support of the state of Israel, and critical of those he perceives as being against Israel.
In July 2008, the British satirical magazine Private Eye reported that Newkey-Burden had posted positive reviews of his own books on the Amazon.co.uk online bookstore.

Reviews

[Andy Phillips · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is quite interesting and fairly funny, but it is short (92 pages in my edition) and there are quite a few spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and so on. It's a good start for people interested in the subject, but it won't tell you much new if you know much about nuclear weapons already. I personally would have liked to see a larger bibliography, but some of the obvious sources are given.

I'll try to summarise what's contained in each chapter:

1) Development of nuclear weapons and their use in World War II.

2) The Cuban Missile Crisis.

3) The relationship between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan during the Cold War.

4) The 'Protect and Survive' brochure and plans for the UK government after a nuclear attack.

5) Films about nuclear war.

6) The film 'Threads'.

7) The influence of nuclear weapons on pop culture, fashion, music etc.

8) The Millennium Bug, accidents involving nuclear weapons and nuclear power and other 'near misses'.

9) Nuclear terrorism and potential conflicts between India and Pakistan.