Beatrice Heuser

This book shows that political culture, values and beliefs taking the form of belief-systems or logically less coherent belief-clusters that have grown over many years, are central to understanding nuclear strategy preferences, and that it is often pointless to surmise another country's 'national interest' without a deep understanding of these factors.

Details the race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for superiority in atomic weaponry since the inception of the Manhattan Project in 1939, and analyzes the danger of unleashing phenomenally destructive weapons upon the world.