A Timely X-mas Gift to Celebrate the Passage of New START – Tad Daley's Apocalypse Never

 In Uncategorized

Looking for a last minute Christmas gift? How about a well-written book making a compelling case for the abolition of nuclear weapons (to celebrate the Senate passage of the New START pact!). Tad Daley’s Apocalypse Never:  Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World couldn’t be more timely.

Dr. Daley is the Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize), a former policy analyst for the RAND Corporation, and a former speechwriter for Congressman Dennis Kucinich and the late U.S. Senator Alan Cranston.

APOCALYPSE NEVER, released last summer by Rutgers University Press, is a primer on the nuclear big picture for a broad general audience. The book launches a wholesale assault on the nuclear double standard, arguing that it is both morally indefensible and politically unsustainable. It makes the case that for the United States today, nuclear weapons are both militarily unnecessary and militarily useless. It decisively repudiates the most frequent objection to abolition, “the breakout scenario” — the possibility that after abolition some nation might whip back the curtain, reveal a dozen nuclear warheads, and proceed to “rule the world.” And it envisions some of the possible global governance architectures we will have to invent both to bring about and to maintain a nuclear weapon free world.

The “customer reviews” for APOCALYPSE NEVER on AMAZON indicate that readers find the book “neither academic nor preachy,” and “clear, real, and concrete,” and “literate and engaging,” and “compelling and inspiring,” and “headed for my kids now.” And so too do many of the 27 luminaries who offered advance praise for the book, including former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, Martin Sheen, Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Robert G. Gard, Jr.,  Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Michael Douglas, Rabbi Michael Lerner, William Hartung of the New America Foundation, Peace Action’s own Kevin Martin, and Pulitzer Prize winner Martin Sherwin. All that praise, along with the entire first chapter and much else on the topic — even audios and videos of Tad in action out on the stump — is available at www.apocalypsenever.org.

And at last count, 13 of 14 AMAZON “customer reviews” had awarded the book 5 stars.

Washington Post columnist and American Prospect editor Harold Meyerson says, “For those of us who think that freeing the planet from the specter of nuclear holocaust is the most important task before humankind, Tad Daley has drawn us a roadmap for the journey ahead. Mixing political sobriety with existential urgency and just plain damn good writing, Daley shows us the way.”

Daniel Ellsberg says, “Tad Daley has performed a truly rare feat. He doesn’t offer the same tired survey of Iran and North Korea and the contemporary nuclear landscape. His wonderful first book will enable both experts and regular folks to see, breathe, and believe in the dawn of a nuclear weapon-free world.”

Apocalypse Never builds a compelling case for one of the most urgent causes of our time—the global abolition of nuclear weapons. Tad Daley writes with all the seriousness the subject requires, but refreshingly eschews the jargon too often applied by ‘experts’ that estranges those not conversant in their lingo.”

—Kevin Martin, executive director, Peace Action (hey that’s me! the inside cover of the book blurb!)

Tad Daley told us, “I like to say to disarmament advocates and experts that I hope mine is the kind of book you can give to your brother-in-law, someone who has always been vaguely on your side but never done a whole lot more than say, in response to your abolitionist entreaties, ‘Yeah – I’m for that too.’ My ultimate aspiration is for the book to serve as a tool for us, to help us grow and galvanize the grassroots nuclear disarmament movement, and make it into a mighty political force that politicians will find impossible to ignore. I cannot promise that result. But as the hockey star Wayne Gretzky likes to say, you always miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.”

You could do much to spread the word if you would become a fan of the book on Facebook at  www.facebook.com/apocalypsenever.

Tad Daley will be available throughout 2011 for speaking appearances, online author chats, webinars — however you might wish to utilize him, and APOCALYPSE NEVER, to preach beyond the choir, and to grow our collective voice. You may contact him directly at tad@daleyplanet.org.

Recent Posts

Leave a Comment

Start typing and press Enter to search