Best studies of the atomic age from an international perspective?

June 20, 2014 4:21 PM

I've read Paul Boyer's By the Bomb's Early Light (1985) and Margot Henriksen's Dr. Strangelove's America (1997), and both focus on American society and its reactions to the bomb. Now I'm looking for books and other material that give an overview of other countries in the atomic age. Can you recommend any?

Thanks, MeFites!

posted by Quilford to Grab Bag (4 answers total)

This is probably not exactly what you're looking for, but I'm reminded of the excellent Australian novel, On the Beach, by Nevil Shute.
posted by alex1965 at 7:13 AM on June 21, 2014

There's also this. The book looks interesting -- my parents and grandparents lived through it.
posted by alex1965 at 11:03 AM on June 21, 2014

Response by poster: Yeah, I am looking more for non-fiction studies rather than fiction texts, but thanks anyway for the interesting article.
posted by Quilford at 3:20 PM on June 21, 2014

Best answer: Tony Judt's Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1947 discusses the arms race and what it meant for people on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Of course at 900+ pages it discusses many things. The first 100 pages are devoted to the actual end of WWII, worth reading if you didn't want to slog through the whole thing. I slogged and was glad I did, really good book.

Eric Schlosser's Command and Control tells the story of the development of nuclear arms in this country, but also of the many near disasters that have just barely been avoided, many by shear luck. The nuclear arsenal that we think of as locked down safely, has been anything but, and it makes for chilling reading.
posted by PaulBGoode at 12:41 PM on June 22, 2014