The Nuclear Age

An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival

Serhii Plokhy

$55

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Allen Lane
21 November 2025

20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; The Cold War; International relations; Nuclear weapons; Nuclear power & engineering

From the best-selling author of Chernobyl comes a sweeping history of the geopolitics behind the nuclear arms race, from the first atomic bomb to today

On 16 July 1945, the Nuclear Age began with the explosion of the first atomic bomb and the words of J. Robert Oppenheimer- 'Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.'

While the threat of mutually assured destruction kept a lid on a simmering and tense geopolitical landscape, events like the Chernobyl disaster and near-misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis showed that total destruction was only ever one malfunction, mistake, or miscommunication away. Now, as governments re-arm their nuclear arsenals, treaties designed to limit the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons fall away, and nuclear weapons come increasingly within reach of non-state actors, we are on the brink of a renaissance of the nuclear industry.

In The Nuclear Age, acclaimed historian Serhii Plokhy paints an intricate picture of a world governed by fear. From the first artificial splitting of the atom in 1917 and the race to create the first atomic bomb in World War II, through the fraught arms race of the Cold War, to the imperialism, neo-colonial motivation and wars being waged today, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is as pertinent as ever.

As he examines the motivations of key players, Plokhy confronts the crucial question of our age- what can we learn from the first nuclear arms race that can help us to stop the new one?

By: Serhii Plokhy
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 38mm
Weight: 648g
ISBN: 9780241582862
ISBN 10: 0241582865
Pages: 432
Publication Date: 21 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Serhii Plokhy is the author of Chernobyl- History of a Tragedy, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Pushkin House Book Prize, and the New York Times bestseller The Gates of Europe. His many acclaimed books, including The Russo-Ukrainian War, Nuclear Folly and Atoms and Ashes, have been translated into over a dozen languages. He is Professor of History at Harvard University where he also serves as Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

Reviews for The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival

Few historians write with Serhii Plokhy’s authority, clarity or global vision. The Nuclear Age is not only the definitive account of how nuclear power and peril have shaped the modern world, but a profound warning about the risks we still face. This is essential reading, and a marvellous book -- Peter Frankopan Panoramic in scope and fastidious in detail... Plokhy's perfectly timed, compelling and essential book reminds us that the spectre of nuclear extinction is not a cold war nightmare but a permanent condition of modern life * Financial Times *