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Command and Control
- Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
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Publisher's summary
A myth-shattering exposé of America's nuclear weapons.
Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten.
Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than 50 years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can't be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.
Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America's nuclear age.
Critic reviews
A New York Times Notable Book of 2013
"A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the US...fascinating." (Time magazine)
"Schlosser's book reads like a thriller, but it's masterfully even-handed, well researched, and well organised. Either he's a natural genius at integrating massive amounts of complex information, or he worked like a dog to write this book. You wouldn't think the prospect of nuclear apocalypse would make for a reading treat, but in Schlosser's hands it does." Lev Grossman, Jonathan Franzen, The Guardian)
Featured Article: 12 Thrilling History Listens to Get Ready for
Oppenheimer
Dubbed the "father of the atomic bomb," J. Robert Oppenheimer was a theoretical physicist who gained notoriety for the role he played in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the very first nuclear weapon. After the atomic bomb was developed, it was deployed by the United States to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These listens provide historical context about the man at the center of Christopher Nolan's biopic.
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By: Neil Sheehan
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Skunk Works
- A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed
- By: Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies. Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of Cold War confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds.
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Ben Rich's life story...but not in that order
- By Allstar on 11-05-16
By: Ben R. Rich, and others
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The Weapon Wizards
- How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower
- By: Yaakov Katz, Amir Bohbot
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Story
From drones to satellites, missile defense systems to cyber warfare, Israel is leading the world when it comes to new technology being deployed on the modern battlefield. The Weapon Wizards shows how this tiny nation of 8,000,000 learned to adapt to the changes in warfare and in the defense industry and become the new prototype of a 21st century superpower, not in size, but rather in innovation and efficiency - and as a result of its long war experience.
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Good Overview, May Overstate Level of Innovation
- By JBF on 06-15-17
By: Yaakov Katz, and others
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Who Can Hold the Sea
- The U.S. Navy in the Cold War 1945-1960
- By: James D. Hornfischer
- Narrated by: Christopher Newton, Sharon Hornfischer
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
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Performance
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This landmark account of the U.S. Navy in the Cold War, Who Can Hold the Sea combines narrative history with scenes of stirring adventure on—and under—the high seas. In 1945, at the end of World War II, the victorious Navy sends its sailors home and decommissions most of its warships. But this peaceful interlude is short-lived, as Stalin, America’s former ally, makes aggressive moves in Europe and the Far East.
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James D. Hornfisher's last work
- By JWHayn4563 on 05-05-22
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Red Moon Rising
- Sputnik and the Hidden Rivals That Ignited the Space Age
- By: Matthew Brzezinski
- Narrated by: Charles Stransky
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On October 4, 1957, a time of Cold War paranoia, the Soviet Union secretly launched the Earth's first artificial moon. No bigger than a basketball, the tiny satellite was powered by a car battery. Yet, for all its simplicity, Sputnik stunned the world.
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awesome
- By Thomas on 06-25-09
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Bloody Sixteen
- The USS Oriskany and Air Wing 16 During the Vietnam War
- By: Peter Fey
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Strategy and reality collide in Peter Fey's gripping history of aircraft carrier USS Oriskany's three deployments to Vietnam with Carrier Air Wing 16 (CVW-16). Its tours coincided with the most dangerous phases of Operation Rolling Thunder, the ill-fated bombing campaign against North Vietnam, and accounted for a quarter of all the naval aircraft lost during Rolling Thunder. The Johnson administration's policy of gradually applied force meant that Oriskany arrived on station just as previous restrictions were lifted and bombing raids increased.
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Great Listen!
- By MeathookWX on 09-21-18
By: Peter Fey
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The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- By: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
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The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill.
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Eye opening
- By Brian on 11-16-10
By: David E. Hoffman
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The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- By: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
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Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
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Scientia Est Potentia/Knowledge is Power
- By Cynthia on 10-08-15
By: Annie Jacobsen
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Eyes on Target
- Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs
- By: Scott McEwen, Richard Miniter
- Narrated by: Holter Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
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Told through the eyes of current and former Navy SEALs, Eyes on Target is an inside account of some of the most harrowing missions in American history-including the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and the mission that wasn't, the deadly attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi where a retired SEAL sniper with a small team held off one hundred terrorists while his repeated radio calls for help went unheeded.
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Just an attempt to cash in
- By John on 09-24-16
By: Scott McEwen, and others
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SEAL Target Geronimo
- The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden
- By: Chuck Pfarrer
- Narrated by: Erik Bergmann
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
On May 2, 2011, at 1:03 a.m. a satellite uplink was sent from Pakistan crackling into the situation room of the White House: "Geronimo, Echo, KIA." These words, spoken by a Navy SEAL, ended Osama bin Laden's reign of terror. SEAL Target Geronimo is the story of Neptune's Spear from the men who were there. After talking to members of the SEAL team involved in the raid, Pfarrer shares never-before-revealed details in an exclusive account of what happened as he takes listeners inside the walls of Bin Laden's compound.
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Marcinko’s Legacy….his pain, their gain.
- By James on 11-10-11
By: Chuck Pfarrer
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Tanker Pilot
- Lessons from the Cockpit
- By: Mark Hasara, Rush Limbaugh - foreword
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Get a glimpse of life in the pilot's seat and experience modern air warfare directly from a true American hero. Lt. Col Mark Hasara - who has 24 years of experience in flying missions around the world - provides keen and eye-opening insights on success and failure and emphasizes the importance of always being willing to learn. He provides 12 essential lessons based on his wartime experience and his own personal photographs from his missions during the Cold War, Gulf War, and Iraq War.
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NKAWTG! Nobody!
- By David Stefano on 11-10-17
By: Mark Hasara, and others
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The Final Mission of Extortion 17
- Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, and the Deadliest Day of the US War in Afghanistan
- By: Ed Darack
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
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The downing of Extortion 17 spurred a number of conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the shootdown was revenge for bin Laden's death. In The Final Mission of Extortion 17, Ed Darack debunks this theory and others and uncovers the truth behind this mysterious tragedy. His account of the brave pilots, crew, and passengers of Extortion 17 and the events of that fateful day is interwoven into a rich, complex narrative that also discusses modern joint combat operations and the history of the Afghan war to that date.
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What the "Lone Survivor" wasn't.
- By Douglas on 09-29-17
By: Ed Darack
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American Soldier
- By: General Tommy R. Franks, Malcolm McConnell
- Narrated by: Eric Conger
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
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The Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003, General Tommy Franks made history leading American and Coalition forces to victory in Afghanistan and Iraq, the decisive battles that launched the war on terrorism.
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even more proud of our military
- By Brian on 08-12-04
By: General Tommy R. Franks, and others
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Solid, brief primer in nuclear weapons
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Dark Sun
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Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War.
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What listeners say about Command and Control
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Logical Paradox
- 02-21-17
The Best Book on Nukes!
If you find the subject of nuclear weapons science, strategy, policy, and/or history even the least bit compelling, then this is the book for you to get!
I've long been very interested in these areas and I've listened to just about every book that Audible has on the topic. Among those titles have been many good reads and quite a few truly great ones. But among that crowd, Eric Schlosser's book "Command and Control" stands head and shoulders above the rest. This is simply the most comprehensive, wide-scoped, and ambitiously detailed book of its type that I've yet come across.
The book's central theme is the examination of the nuclear command and control system and the various aspects of risk management and safety that surround the development, deployment, and management of nuclear weapons. The book, however, goes well beyond that focus, to give a real tour de force treatment of nuclear weapons. From the very beginnings of the first nuclear weapons research, to the esoteric theoretical and scientific principles that make these devices possible, to the technical and engineering details of individual weapon system designs and the history of their development, deployment, and intended uses, all the way to the constantly evolving space of nuclear strategy and doctrine throughout every U. S. administration from FDR to George W. Bush... this book seemingly leaves no stone unturned.
The book is told as a narrative history, or more accurately histories (plural), of many nuclear accidents and mishaps. The well known Damascus Incident of 1980 serves as the unifying narrative, broken up into chunks that are told to the reader in bits and pieces, broken up by the recounting of numerous other incidents and countless historical, scientific, and political tangents that truly flesh out an impressive compendium for those interested in this kind of stuff. That Schlosser is able to tie all of this together in one book, while keeping it cohesive and maintaining a logical flow between its various parts is the mark of a true labor of love.
Equally impressive is the balance Schlosser is able to strike between a rich intellectual analysis and idiosyncratically personal human moments. The book treat its more complex technical and scientific information with integrity, while gracefully managing to stay deeply in tune with the humanity of the people and personalities in the story. Far from being cold and dry, this book is thoughtful, deeply inquisitive, and continually refocuses itself on quintessentially human problems and factors, all while never flinching or shying away from looking at the facts with a sober and steady view.
Highly recommended to anyone who's interested in the subject matter or who loves a good narrative full of techno drama and political machinations. also highly recommended for anyone interested in systems analysis and risk management, as the problems and issues that come to light as some of the key conclusions of this book are applicable to so many everyday people in today's world of complex integrated systems.
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- larnole
- 04-29-17
Multiple narratives woven into fascinating story
What was one of the most memorable moments of Command and Control?
The accident at Damascus as seen and experienced from many different locations, both in the immediate vicinity as well as hundreds of miles away. From the outset of the book, this is an explosion waiting to happen. The anticipation is built effectively as futile efforts to deal with a potential disaster are attempted and fail.
Any additional comments?
The reader will come away with a comprehensive understanding of the history of nuclear/atomic weapons, from the Manhattan Project through WWII and into the 80's. If we the public had known just how haphazardly nuclear weapons were handled and stored, the resulting panic and anger would have had a remarkable affect on politics and society. Command and Control is a fascinating history lesson.
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- Count B
- 09-27-16
THE IDIOCY OF THE ARMY LAID BARE
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If this is how United States couldn't handle their nuclear weapons, I wonder how other countries are failing to handle their's and how many accidents that they are having. It just seems like the United States just decided to build bombs and without any safety procedures. It is truly shocking. Leaves me wondering what the hell is going on in Putins lawless Russia & their nuclear weapons. This book will shock & surprise, but mostly scare the Bee-Jesus out of you.
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- Andy
- 10-01-13
plenty to go wrong here
Terrific story about the the arms race and all the close calls with nuclear weapons. One message I walked away with was that our government has a lot of people working on this issue, but that no one is perfect, and the risk of unintended nuclear disaster remains.
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- NiceDay247
- 01-14-20
Excellent and full of amazing facts.
Can't say enough about this book. It should be required reading for students and government officials. Great story and well narrated.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-30-20
You can’t make this stuff up...
Great deep insight into the American side of the nuclear Cold War. Learned a lot! The interplay of the Damascus, Arkansas incident and the history of the US nuclear weapons deployment was a bit awkward at first, but it breaks up the personnel stories with the facts. Worth the credit and time!
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- Lucas
- 08-04-18
Excellent read.
Great insight on how the nuclear era took place, and how lucky we are not to have blown ourselves up by now. Great narration. Story is somewhat long and sometimes wander, but overall hard to put down. The book is full of interesting facts and cases from start to finish!
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- Ted Mac
- 12-01-16
Pop!!
Need to know about the truth and nuclear proliferation from Los Alamos to Nagasaki to Hiroshima to Bay of Pigs to subs, silos and B-52s. ALL the Presidents.
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- TDW
- 08-31-18
Great history, scary history, how did we survive?
My only complaint, the timeline hops around and in an audio book vs in print where you can easily flip back and see where you were/are, this kind of threw me till I got used to it.
Otherwise, a pretty darn good tale of the miracle of us all being alive after that crazed nuke happy era. He makes reference to two of the classic movies of that time, FailSafe and Dr. Strangelove, and after this book now I don't think of those as such fictional stories any longer!
A lot of lessons were learned, before we all died in a nuclear holocaust, fortunately, and this is the story of that maturation process here and abroad. A lot of typical military shortsightedness, bad judgment, jingoism and worse is revealed, to no one's surprise I'm sure.
Great tense dramatic story, great history. Read and look at where we are now, what did we learn?
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- Brandon Halvorsen
- 07-28-16
Great story, well researched and insightful
loved it. addictive like few non fiction books. even as a cold war buff there was a great deal of information I didn't know. the author never grinds his politics in and does a great job capturing the feel of the different eras.
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