About the event: The most important thing to say about nuclear weapons is that they have not been used in war since August 1945. This book examines the history of those weapons from the discovery of fission in December 1938 to Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech to the United Nations in December 1988.  It adopts an international and transnational perspective in looking at the nuclear arms race, nuclear crises, peace movements, military strategies, arms control treaties, and the creation of international organizations, since these all involve interactions – some hostile, some cooperative – among states.  These interactions need to be understood, as far as possible, from multiple angles if we are to understand the nuclear order that emerged during the Cold War. The world order is changing, and the nuclear order with it, in important ways.  Does this history suggest lessons for today?

About the speaker: David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Professor of Political Science, and Senior Fellow at the Freeman-Spogli Institute of International Studies, Emeritus.  He joined the Stanford Faculty in 1986.  Before that he taught at Lancaster University and the University of Edinburgh.  He obtained his undergraduate degree in Modern Languages and Literature and his PhD in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University.  At Stanford he has served as co-director of CISAC, director of FSI, and Associate Dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences.