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Eve of Destruction: The inside story of our dangerous nuclear world
'It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered' - US President Harry S. Truman
Truman evidently understood the terrifying power of atomic weaponry, but no one could have realised its full potential when he ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Those military attacks, along with the disasters at the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear reactors, might immediately spring to mind at the mention of nuclear destruction, but the majority of the events recorded in this book are entirely unknown to most people. This book records the facts - many of them still shrouded in secrecy - which show a worrying truth: we have teetered precariously on the brink of Armageddon far more frequently than the general public realises.
Since that first and last atomic war in 1945, there have been a terrifying number of nuclear accidents and mishaps, from the careless or accidental to the genuinely intentional and only narrowly averted. Despite the catastrophic nature of any nuclear conflict, we have come to the very borders of such a situation eight times since the 1960s. These were potential conflicts, but there have been other accidents, such as the reactor meltdown at the nuclear generating plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979, or the 'Palomares Incident' in 1966, when a USAF B-52 bomber crashed after a mid-air collision, dropping four hydrogen bombs on Spanish soil . . .
Eve of Destruction is a warning from history - recent history. It is a call to sit up and listen, and to take note of the very real danger of nuclear catastrophe. It is a timely and important book because, after all, the future of our planet has to concern us all.
Truman evidently understood the terrifying power of atomic weaponry, but no one could have realised its full potential when he ordered the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Those military attacks, along with the disasters at the Fukushima and Chernobyl nuclear reactors, might immediately spring to mind at the mention of nuclear destruction, but the majority of the events recorded in this book are entirely unknown to most people. This book records the facts - many of them still shrouded in secrecy - which show a worrying truth: we have teetered precariously on the brink of Armageddon far more frequently than the general public realises.
Since that first and last atomic war in 1945, there have been a terrifying number of nuclear accidents and mishaps, from the careless or accidental to the genuinely intentional and only narrowly averted. Despite the catastrophic nature of any nuclear conflict, we have come to the very borders of such a situation eight times since the 1960s. These were potential conflicts, but there have been other accidents, such as the reactor meltdown at the nuclear generating plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, in 1979, or the 'Palomares Incident' in 1966, when a USAF B-52 bomber crashed after a mid-air collision, dropping four hydrogen bombs on Spanish soil . . .
Eve of Destruction is a warning from history - recent history. It is a call to sit up and listen, and to take note of the very real danger of nuclear catastrophe. It is a timely and important book because, after all, the future of our planet has to concern us all.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
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Published April 8, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 7, 2023
You'd only understand how much I enjoyed (enjoyed is a weird word given the subject, but true) reading this book if you saw the amount of sticky tabs and annotations I scribbled in the pages as I went.
Plus a great cover of further reading for each chapter. I'll definitely be picking some of those up to read!
Plus a great cover of further reading for each chapter. I'll definitely be picking some of those up to read!
August 21, 2025
It's a tired fable, but the story of Prometheus, the Greek God who stolen fire from Olympus and gave it to man, is chiefly remembered for the eternal punishment he received; to be chained to a rock whilst a giant eagle pecked out his liver, only for it to grow back and to repeat the process the next day ad infinitum.
Humanity's troubled relationship with the atom can be described as the closest we've come to a true Promethean tragedy. The generation of power from the harnessing of nuclear fission is regarded as one of man's greatest achievements, clean, modern and unlimited, but it has walked cheek-by-jowl with the spectre of nuclear holocaust and the myriad tragedies that have occurred, both militarily and in civil society, through our complacency in interacting with splitting the atom.
I was born in 1991, the spectre of nuclear war was a fear of a bygone era, something more prevalent in the minds of my grandparents, but the shadow it cast still looms large over those who remember. Upon reading this book, I asked my parents if they remembered Chernobyl, and they did recall the news bulletins regarding the disposal of milk in the Lake District, and the darkly hilarious school videos of hiding under wooden tables the event of a nuclear blast triple the heat of the core of the Sun.
The author paints a vivid picture of our relationship to all things nuclear, from the mavericks like the Curies, the shocking treatment of the Radium women and the curious and deadly experiments with the 'demon core' at Los Alamos.
In chronological order he goes through the shocking close calls of the 1966 air crash in Palomares in Spain, the hair-trigger standoff of the Cuban crisis in 1962 and the seemingly endless list of Soviet mishaps, where countless nuclear laden submarines have encountered disaster at sea, their one saving grace usually the depth at which the wreck has settled.
Hughes-Wilson, a man who's prior military experience grants him undisputed authority on the subject, writes with detail of not only the comedy, the folly and sheer luck that has separated us from biblical disaster, but also delves deeply into the quest of the nations who sought to develop and possess them. From Castle Bravo, the Tsar Bomba and the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior, he uses meticulous research to describe the base desire with which nations like the USA, UK and France sought to acquire these weapons, but also the murky secrecy of aspirant nuclear nations such as Iran and North Korea.
From Chernobly, Fukishma and Three Mile Island to lesser known events such as Windscale and Kyshtym, the author paints a bleak view of the seemingly innumerable mishaps that have occurred over the decades.
If you're interested in all things nuclear this book is indispensable, my one critique is that in listing so many near misses, disasters and tragedies, the book at times devolves into more of a Top Trumps, but I guess that was probably because the author had to cram so much into 350 pages.
Truly unsettling reading but exceptionally interesting. Well recommended.
Humanity's troubled relationship with the atom can be described as the closest we've come to a true Promethean tragedy. The generation of power from the harnessing of nuclear fission is regarded as one of man's greatest achievements, clean, modern and unlimited, but it has walked cheek-by-jowl with the spectre of nuclear holocaust and the myriad tragedies that have occurred, both militarily and in civil society, through our complacency in interacting with splitting the atom.
I was born in 1991, the spectre of nuclear war was a fear of a bygone era, something more prevalent in the minds of my grandparents, but the shadow it cast still looms large over those who remember. Upon reading this book, I asked my parents if they remembered Chernobyl, and they did recall the news bulletins regarding the disposal of milk in the Lake District, and the darkly hilarious school videos of hiding under wooden tables the event of a nuclear blast triple the heat of the core of the Sun.
The author paints a vivid picture of our relationship to all things nuclear, from the mavericks like the Curies, the shocking treatment of the Radium women and the curious and deadly experiments with the 'demon core' at Los Alamos.
In chronological order he goes through the shocking close calls of the 1966 air crash in Palomares in Spain, the hair-trigger standoff of the Cuban crisis in 1962 and the seemingly endless list of Soviet mishaps, where countless nuclear laden submarines have encountered disaster at sea, their one saving grace usually the depth at which the wreck has settled.
Hughes-Wilson, a man who's prior military experience grants him undisputed authority on the subject, writes with detail of not only the comedy, the folly and sheer luck that has separated us from biblical disaster, but also delves deeply into the quest of the nations who sought to develop and possess them. From Castle Bravo, the Tsar Bomba and the sabotage of the Rainbow Warrior, he uses meticulous research to describe the base desire with which nations like the USA, UK and France sought to acquire these weapons, but also the murky secrecy of aspirant nuclear nations such as Iran and North Korea.
From Chernobly, Fukishma and Three Mile Island to lesser known events such as Windscale and Kyshtym, the author paints a bleak view of the seemingly innumerable mishaps that have occurred over the decades.
If you're interested in all things nuclear this book is indispensable, my one critique is that in listing so many near misses, disasters and tragedies, the book at times devolves into more of a Top Trumps, but I guess that was probably because the author had to cram so much into 350 pages.
Truly unsettling reading but exceptionally interesting. Well recommended.
October 27, 2021
Eve of Destruction is a sobering and frightening insight into the world of nuclear energy, nuclear military weapons, civilian applications and all the accidents and near misses that follow. It describes the nuclear world in which we live and it does not make for comfortable reading. The author, Colonel John Hughes-Wilson, was a military chemical, biological and nuclear weapons expert and so it is fair to say that he is well informed and understands his subject in all its gritty detail.
Early in the book the author describes the nature of nuclear weaponry and the four means of attack which they produce. First the literally blinding light "as bright as a thousand suns", then the immense heat fireball that will turn a human being to ash, then the incredible shockwave that travels at 3000mph laying waste to all but the most immensely strong structures, ripping buildings and living beings to shreds. Finally the most insidious aspect of a nuclear weapons is the radiation emitted. The author goes on to describe the forms of radiation; alpha, beta and gamma rays, nuclear fallout and isotope decay where atoms such a plutonium decay into even more dangerous elements. He continues to describe how ionised radiation (where other materials are irradiated by the primary radiation of a nuclear explosion), and how half lives of some nuclear waste last thousand and in some cases millions of years, leaving some places like Chernobyl uninhabitable for many thousands of years.
It truly is the stuff of nightmares and I found this part of the book quite horrifying, not to mind the descriptions of how radiation affects biological tissue, even disrupting our DNA so mutations can then be inherited by offspring causing malformalities.
The book goes on to document the nuclear tests carried out by nuclear powers such as the USA and France in the Pacific and those tests by Russia in Soviet territories which were all ill judged at best, and often carried out without any consideration for the well being of inhabitants in the surrounding areas. These tests are mostly forgotten by modern societies but can only be regarded as atrocities in their own right.
The book continues to describe nuclear submarine accidents and the casualties, medical applications gone wrong, either by human error or machine malfunction, nuclear plant accidents, criminal activity involving nuclear waste dumping and nuclear waste getting mixed up into the scrap metal trade around the world, the Fukishima and Chernobyl disasters and the potential for nuclear terrorism.
This book will leave some readers terrified, at best you'll have an uneasy feeling about the subject at the end. This book is both informative and well researched. Definitely worth a read.
Early in the book the author describes the nature of nuclear weaponry and the four means of attack which they produce. First the literally blinding light "as bright as a thousand suns", then the immense heat fireball that will turn a human being to ash, then the incredible shockwave that travels at 3000mph laying waste to all but the most immensely strong structures, ripping buildings and living beings to shreds. Finally the most insidious aspect of a nuclear weapons is the radiation emitted. The author goes on to describe the forms of radiation; alpha, beta and gamma rays, nuclear fallout and isotope decay where atoms such a plutonium decay into even more dangerous elements. He continues to describe how ionised radiation (where other materials are irradiated by the primary radiation of a nuclear explosion), and how half lives of some nuclear waste last thousand and in some cases millions of years, leaving some places like Chernobyl uninhabitable for many thousands of years.
It truly is the stuff of nightmares and I found this part of the book quite horrifying, not to mind the descriptions of how radiation affects biological tissue, even disrupting our DNA so mutations can then be inherited by offspring causing malformalities.
The book goes on to document the nuclear tests carried out by nuclear powers such as the USA and France in the Pacific and those tests by Russia in Soviet territories which were all ill judged at best, and often carried out without any consideration for the well being of inhabitants in the surrounding areas. These tests are mostly forgotten by modern societies but can only be regarded as atrocities in their own right.
The book continues to describe nuclear submarine accidents and the casualties, medical applications gone wrong, either by human error or machine malfunction, nuclear plant accidents, criminal activity involving nuclear waste dumping and nuclear waste getting mixed up into the scrap metal trade around the world, the Fukishima and Chernobyl disasters and the potential for nuclear terrorism.
This book will leave some readers terrified, at best you'll have an uneasy feeling about the subject at the end. This book is both informative and well researched. Definitely worth a read.
Read
February 12, 2023a competently written, massively informative account that pairs well with good music and an unhealthily irrational relationship with the nuclear age. everyone with a stake in the stability and inevitability of (post)modernity and its progress should read this book. and many more besides. so sobering its almost an intoxicant.
‘We are perched on the eve of destruction, perhaps more by accident than by design. At the very least, we face serious danger ahead or some unimaginable disaster, one way or another, from our perilous atomic tools and weapons.
We have had plenty of warning.’
‘We are perched on the eve of destruction, perhaps more by accident than by design. At the very least, we face serious danger ahead or some unimaginable disaster, one way or another, from our perilous atomic tools and weapons.
We have had plenty of warning.’
August 13, 2024
I found the book a thoroughly fascinating read.
I learned a lot about atomic, nuclear and hydrothermal physics and dynamics. The risks that pose to us and the advantages that we could gain from the use age.
The book does not hold a biased one-sided view and considers a full round opinion that everyone may hold.
I learned a lot about atomic, nuclear and hydrothermal physics and dynamics. The risks that pose to us and the advantages that we could gain from the use age.
The book does not hold a biased one-sided view and considers a full round opinion that everyone may hold.
August 6, 2021
A book that brings to light dangers of nuclear weapons and power and a startling amount of accidents that are hardly spoken of. A very good read but some of the language used felt slightly off which is why I gave 4 not 5 stars.
June 10, 2023
Thought the Anti-Arab sentiment was a bit offensive and not entirely relevant to the book. Also some misconceptions about tectonics so as a geographer this made me question the authenticity of the remaining facts throughout. Wouldn't overly recommend.
April 5, 2025
Relatively light read considering the topic. Wished for more details if those are available at all. Almost all pf the events are already well documented and only a few that came as a surprise to me. Decent read.
January 11, 2023
This was a brilliant book that kept me interested throughout. Well written and easy to follow. I would recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews