Nuclear War

A Scenario

Annie Jacobsen

$24.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Penguin (Transworld)
08 July 2025

Armed conflict; Theory of warfare & military science; Defence strategy, planning & research; Nuclear weapons; Explosives technology & pyrotechnics

The Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction thriller that has to be read to be believed. Baillie Gifford shortlisted, Sunday Times bestseller, a favourite of Steven Bartlett, average reader rating of 4.6, the book sold 100k copies in its first outing.

Up to now, no one outside of official circles has known exactly what would happen if a rogue state launched a nuclear missile at the Pentagon. Second by second and minute by minute, these are the real-life protocols that choreograph the end of civilisation as we know it. Frantic calls over secure lines work to confirm the worst as armoured helicopters are scrambled to evacuate the chosen few to secure bunkers. One nuclear missile will provoke two dozen in return. Decisions over hundreds of millions of lives need to be made within six minutes, based on partial information, knowing that once launched, nothing is capable of halting the destruction.

Based on dozens of new interviews with military and civilian experts, Nuclear War is at once a compulsive non-fiction thriller and a powerful argument that we must rid ourselves of these world-ending weapons for ever.

By: Annie Jacobsen
Imprint: Penguin (Transworld)
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 127mm, Spine: 35mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781804996003
ISBN 10: 1804996009
Pages: 400
Publication Date: 08 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Annie Jacobsen the bestselling author of Nuclear War- A Scenario, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize. A 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist, her other books include Area 51, Operation Paperclip and Surprise, Kill, Vanish, and have been translated into 26 languages. She also writes and produces TV, including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two sons.

Reviews for Nuclear War: A Scenario

A stomach-clenching, multi-perspective, ticking-clock, geopolitical thriller rooted in the seeds of our own destruction, planted nearly 80 years ago at the Trinity test site by the scientists of the Manhattan Project who brazenly dared to rip the building blocks of our universe apart... I couldn’t put the thing down, feverishly turning page after page until I finished it on the plane ride home... Nuclear War: A Scenario should be required reading for everyone alive today. * Forbes * Books like Annie Jacobsen’s gripping Nuclear War: A Scenario are essential if you want to understand the complex and disturbing details that go into a civilization-destroying decision to drop the Bomb on an enemy. -- Barry Gewen * The New York Times * This terrifying book is a must-read for every world leader. * Mother Jones * Extraordinary... Her book delivers more detail than has been available to the public before... Terrifying. * New Scientist * Based on hundreds of interviews with many retired security officials and more-or-less declassified information in the public domain, what it captures brilliantly is the emotional chaos into which leaders would be plunged in such a situation.... These are scenes straight out of Dr Strangelove. * Telegraph *