Examining the premises of the arguments in favor of maintaining nuclear weapons capability, the authors argue that recovery after nuclear warfare is unlikely.

Contents

Preface / Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk -- Acknowledgments -- Section 1. Imagining the real / Robert Jay Lifton -- ch. 1. The world of the bomb -- ch. 2. Nuclear illusions -- ch. 3. Security -- the ultimate psychologism -- ch. 4. Is Hiroshima our text? -- ch. 5. The bomb in our schools -- and in Us -- ch. 6. The image of extinction -- ch. 7. A way of seeing -- ch. 8. A break in the human chain -- ch. 9. Nuclear fundamentalism -- ch. 10. On numbing and feeling -- ch. 11. Imagining the real -- Section 2. Political anatomy of nuclearism / Richard Falk -- ch. 12. Taking stands -- ch. 13. Nuclearizing security -- ch. 14. Nuclear intentions -- ch. 15. Emergent nuclearism -- ch. 16. The Soviet factor : a "useful" enemy -- ch. 17. Passivity -- the enemy of peace -- ch. 18. Constraining and liberating world pictures -- ch. 19. Obtain the possible : demand the impossible -- Conclusion : In darkness -- toward light / Robert Jay Lifton and Richard Falk -- Appendix : Nuclear war's effect on the mind / Robert Jay Lifton and Kai Erikson -- References -- Index.