Summary of Daniel Ellsberg's The Doomsday Machine

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 I was nine years old when I saw newsreels of the London Blitz, and I was shocked by the cruelty of the Nazis. I believed what we were told about American and British bombers bravely flying through flak to drop their loads on targets in Germany.

#2 I was 13 when I learned about the challenges of the nuclear era in a social studies class. The teacher, Bradley Patterson, explained that the development of technology regularly moved much faster than other aspects of culture.

#3 The existence of a bomb like that would be bad news for humanity. It would be too powerful to be safely controlled. The power would be abused, and civilization would be in danger of destruction.

#4 The first person to form a judgment about the bomb was Leo Szilard, who first conceived the idea of a chain reaction in a heavy element like uranium. He was in London in 1933 as an émigré, having left Berlin just days after the Reichstag fire.

© 2022 IRB Media (Ebook): 9781669372035

Release date

Ebook: 25 March 2022