Written by Rudolph Herzog for Galiani, a division of Kiepenheuer & Witsch

"Der verstrahlte Westernheld" (OT)

English version: Melville House Publishing, New York

Publication date English version: 4/2013

 

Description

 

In the spirit of "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Atomic Café", a blackly sardonic people's history of atomic blunders and near-misses from an "accidental" drop of a Nagasaki-type bomb on a train conductor's house, to atomic heart implants and a mad German scientist's plan to generate hydropower in the Sahara by blasting a canal with 200 hydrogen bombs. Includes some of Rudolph Herzog's own childhood memories of the final period of the Cold War. He grew up in Germany - the country that strategists saw as the nuclear battleground for NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

 

Order your copy here.

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View an interview with the author on BBC WORLD TV.

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View a 1 hour reading with the author on C-SPAN 2.

 

Press quotes

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Meticulously researched and thrillingly told – reading this is as informative as it is spine-chillingly entertaining

—DIE ZEIT

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An eclectic, innovative approach to the bureaucratization of creativity during the Cold War.

—LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

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A haunting and well phrased warning

—FOCUS ONLINE

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Rudolph Herzogs collection of the most incredible stories reads as a tour de force through the most polluted places on the globe

—FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU

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A sardonic, little-known history of misguided, accidental and irresponsible uses of nuclear technology

—THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

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It is arguably not possible to imagine human stupidity on a grander scale than what Rudolph Herzog has stockpiled in his new book.

—BROOKLYN RAIL

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Unflinching… Let’s just say that Herzog's use of the word ’folly’ is an understatement.

—VILLAGE VOICE

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Reading about human courtship of nuclear destruction is like watching the wobbles of an amateur tightrope walker: one gawks in terror and amazement...Herzog will make your jaw drop with regularity

—MACLEANS

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Reads like a piece of tragic magical realism...for a book about such a heavy subject, A Short History of Nuclear Folly keeps it quick and snappy and, dare I say, entertaining

—PHILADELPHIA REVIEW OF BOOKS