Dr Strangelove, I Presume: "Dr Strangelove, I Presume" - Hardcover

Foot, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0575066938 ISBN 13: 9780575066939

Publisher: W&N, 1999

Synopsis

The Cold War may have ended, but the arms race has not. In May 1998, India resumed the underground testing of nuclear weapons. Pakistan responded with tests of its own - and all of a sudden the arms race was on again. Not that it ever stopped: China, Israel, Iran and Iraq have been pursuing weapons-building programmes and the ultimate horror of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists draws ever near. In this book, Michael Foot looks back over 40 years of fighting the nuclear menace and surveys the world scene at the close of the 20th century as a warning of the continuing danger of building weapons of mass destruction.

About this title

Review:

The end of the Cold War was also supposed to herald the end of the threat of global nuclear warfare which hung over a generation like an enormous collective sword of Damocles. Michael Foot's book Dr Strangelove, I Presume dispels any such comfortable ideas of the disappearance of the nuclear nightmare. Inspired by the nuclear arms races sparked in Asia which followed the atomic tests carried out by both Pakistan and India in the spring of 1998, Foot's book points out with great passion and conviction that the threat of nuclear catastrophe is, if anything, even more likely in the light of the fluid and unstable nature of global politics in the post-Cold War era.

Ironically, Foot's book often reads like a memoir from a bygone era of the intransigent politics of Cold War warriors like Kennedy, Kruschev and Reagan. Earlier sections often seem rather rambling and full of quirky asides, but what redeems the book is Foot's anger and incredulity at the folly and hypocrisy of the actions of both India and Pakistan, as he traces with great precision the history of their nuclear stand-off. The final sections of the book show old Footie at his best, issuing a rallying call to the peace movement and the international community to wake up to the renewed threat of nuclear confrontation. This is an important book from one of the more principled statesmen of 20th-century politics, which stresses the need to remember, rather than forget, the follies of the Cold War era. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description:

A study of the nuclear menace of the 20th century by a former Labour leader.

About this edition

• Publisher: W&N
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0575066938
• ISBN 13: 9780575066939
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240