'What drives these pages is the guilty collective conscience of my profession, theoretical physics. My sole aim is to help avert what seems to me to be the unintended, yet scarcely avoidable, end point of the current politics of the governments we have elected- nuclear war.' The world is re-arming, embroiled in endless wars. The Doomsday Clock has now been set to 85 seconds to midnight, with the risk of nuclear war the highest it has ever been. We think we understand the history of the nuclear bomb, but it is clear we have failed to learn from the past. In this urgent book, acclaimed physicist Carlo Rovelli reframes the story of nuclear weapons- from how the atomic bomb came to be to why Germany didn't build it and why the US used it when the war had been won to the narrowly averted atomic disasters of the Cold War. With lucidity and passion, he explores the many mistakes and misunderstandings that got us here, delivering a reckoning for scientists, who invented the deadliest weapon ever known, and a warning for all of us. As he grapples with the legacy of his scientific forebears, Rovelli spotlights the true nature of the decisions being made by leaders around the world today.

A timely and ardent cry for peace, this searing indictment of short-sighted politics is essential reading for anyone seeking sanity at a moment of greatest peril.