Back The Fate of the Earth, The Abolition, The Unconquerable World

Jonathan Schell: The Fate of the Earth, The Abolition, The Unconquerable World

Edited by Martin J. Sherwin

Rediscover the unforgettable books that changed the way we think about war in the nuclear age

Overview

Overview

Video The Fate of the Earth: Jonathan Schell and His Legacy
December 28, 2020

Interviews Martin J. Sherwin: At his core, Jonathan Schell was a philosopher
June 30, 2020

From the Vietnam era to the war on terror, Jonathan Schell (1943–2014) produced a body of work as brave, humane, and consequential as any in the history of American journalism. His legacy rests especially on three books about the threat of nuclear weapons—“the gravest danger of our age”—and the changing nature of modern warfare. On the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Library of America brings together these essential works in one volume for the first time.

What exactly would happen, to people and to the planet, in a nuclear war? With vivid, meticulous, and increasingly harrowing answers to this simple question, The Fate of the Earth (1982) shook the nation and the world to attention. An immediate international best seller, it dramatically illuminated the stakes involved in abstract discussions of “survivability” and the balance of power, prompting fierce criticism from foreign policy hawks, electrifying public consciousness, and leading many readers to question the sanity, and the inevitability, of the status quo. In the wake of its publication, an emboldened nuclear freeze movement would ultimately prevail upon the Reagan administration to alter its rhetoric and to pursue substantive arms reduction talks.

In The Abolition (1984), Schell makes the case that a world without nuclear weapons is achievable. The pursuit of pathways to disarmament, he argues, is neither naive nor utopian but a matter of urgent, practical necessity. Answering critics for whom the “mutually assured destruction” of conventional deterrence theory seems the only realistic option for national security, he proposes concrete steps toward a new international order, a system of “weaponless deterrence” and continually negotiated peace.

Situating the unimaginably destructive forces of the atomic era within a broad history of nation-state conflict, Schell’s magisterial The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People (2003) looks forward to the future with a surprising degree of hope. A sweeping, richly detailed analysis of the changing nature of military confrontation, both nuclear and conventional, from the horrors of the twentieth century to the beginnings of the Iraq War, it argues that war itself has atrophied in the nuclear age, indeed it has increasingly become a self-defeating instrument. Meanwhile another power, the “will of the people,” as expressed in popular nonviolent movements, has more and more come to the fore to replace it.

Martin J. Sherwin, editor, is one of America’s leading writers on nuclear history. His books include A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and Its Legacie_s; the Pulitzer Prize–winning _American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Robert Oppenheimer, written with Kai Bird; and, most recently, Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis. A professor emeritus at Tufts University and University Professor of History at George Mason University, he lives in Washington, D.C., and Aspen, Colorado.

This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker.

Project support for Jonathan Schell: The Fate of the Earth, The Abolition, The Unconquerable World was provided by The Gould Family Foundation.

The volume is kept in print by an additional gift from The Gould Family Foundation to the Guardians of American Letters Fund.

20.00 List Price: $40.00 (Save: 50%) Free shipping on orders $50 and over

Or buy from our partners

Phone orders: 1-800-964-5778 Request product #203465

ISBN: 978-1-59853-658-4 798 pages

LOA books are distributed worldwide by Penguin Random House

N° 329 Library of America Series

Subscribers can purchase the slipcased edition by signing in to their accounts.

Related Books

American Birds: A Literary Companion

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau LOA N°182

War No More: Three Centuries of American Antiwar & Peace Writing LOA N°278

Rachel Carson: Silent Spring & Other Writings on the Environment LOA N°307

Reporting World War II (boxed set)

Library of America

CURATOR

A champion of America’s great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation’s history and culture.

Learn More

PUBLISHER

From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as America’s literary canon.

Browse our books Subscribe

NON-PROFIT

With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come.

Support our mission

Jonathan Schell: The Fate of the Earth, The Abolition, The Unconquerable World

Related Books

Get 10% off your first Library of America purchase.