A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race Hardcover – November 27, 1990

by Carl Sagan

Today, global nuclear arsenals hold nearly 60,000 weapons, sufficient to devastate every city on Earth 25 times over. Nuclear policy in the U.S. and Russia was based on "winning" a nuclear war--until 1983, when the discovery of nuclear winter helped to alter this outlook radically. Illustrated.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy, History, Physics

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

In 1934, scientist Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. After earning bachelor and master's degrees at Cornell, Sagan earned a double doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1960. He became professor of astronomy and space science and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, and co-founder of the Planetary Society. A great popularizer of science, Sagan produced the PBS series, "Cosmos," which was Emmy and Peabody award-winning, and was watched by 500 million people in 60 countries. A book of the same title came out in 1980, and was on The New York Times bestseller list for 7 weeks. Sagan was author, co-author or editor of 20 books, including The Dragons of Eden (1977), which won a Pulitzer, Pale Blue Dot (1995) and The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark (1996), his hardest-hitting on religion. With his wife, Ann Druyan, he was co-producer of the popular motion picture, "Contact," which featured a feminist, atheist protagonist played by Jodie Foster (1997). The film came out after Sagan's death, following a 2-year struggle with a bone marrow disease. Sagan played a leading role in NASA's Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to other planets. Ann Druyan, in the epilogue to Sagan's last book, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium (published posthumously in 1997), gives a moving account of Carl's last days: "Contrary to the fantasies of the fundamentalists, there was no deathbed conversion, no last minute refuge taken in a comforting vision of a heaven or an afterlife. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever."

For his work, Dr. Sagan received the NASA medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award. Asteroid 2709 Sagan is named after him. He was also awarded the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award of the American Astronautical Society, the Explorers Club 75th Anniversary Award, the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation, and the Masursky Award of the American Astronomical Society, ("for his extraordinary contributions to the development of planetary science…As a scientist trained in both astronomy and biology, Dr. Sagan has made seminal contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres, planetary surfaces, the history of the Earth, and exobiology. Many of the most productive planetary scientists working today are his present and former students and associates").

He was also a recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Sagan was elected Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For twelve years he was the editor-in-chief of Icarus, the leading professional journal devoted to planetary research. He was cofounder and President of the Planetary Society, a 100,000-member organization that is the largest space-interest group in the world; and Distinguished Visiting Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

In their posthumous award to Dr. Sagan of their highest honor, the National Science Foundation declared that his "research transformed planetary science… his gifts to mankind were infinite." D. 1996.

More: https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/it...

Reviews

[Callum Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrifying

[Gendou · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say it, but this book is motivated by ideology more than science. Sagan lays out a clear case for the severe impacts of nuclear winter. That's about 5% of the book. The rest covers military and political strategy that I found completely uninteresting.

TL;DR: Big nuclear wars cause fires that put so much soot into the air that it can kill crops for years.

But the cost in lives from the blasts alone is already so unthinkable that it's difficult for me to care about this added cost. Maybe this is due to my privilege from living in a time where nuclear war is synonymous with near human extinction, and I take it for granted that people understand this. Maybe Sagan helped this come about.

Still a boring read... from my favorite author of all time.

[GeekChick · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I remember most of this book is that it scared the @#%$*& out of me! This was one of the earliest popular works about nuclear winter. As a teenager in the midst of the Cold War, it firmly influenced my thinking on this subject.

Not for the weak at heart -- this book is certainly not written in Sagan's usual style. It's definitely drier, if I remember correctly. But if you are interested in the subject, I recommend it. As far as I am aware, the findings of the early nuclear winter studies have not been refuted by subsequent science.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must-read despite the scientific redundancy. It's an acceptable redundancy imo due to the serious nature of the book. The sources take up nearly half of the book! Very well-researched and sourced. I'm interested in finding and reading a more modern account of the status of nuclear weapons worldwide.

[P.S. Winn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl Sagan was a man ahead of his time, This book talks about nuclear war and what it really means. The author had no idea how close a new U.S. President might be at making that horrific future a possibility. No one wins a nuclear war, someone should make sure the leaders of all countries, especially America know it.

[teohjitkhiam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading this makes me wonder if states w/ smaller stock are more dangerous. They may think nuke war is survivable.

[María · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siempre me ha gustado Carl Sagan.
Vine justo en este tiempo, en este momento, a toparme con este libro. Algunos lo tildan de exagerado, a mi me parece desesperado.

Lo recomiendo.

[Patrick Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was holding off on reading this Sagan book because it seemed dense and off topic, but I am glad that I read it. I absolutely love when Sagan talks about society, politics, the environment etc. He takes the importance of living on this planet seriously. As he says ‘we have an obligation to survive.’ This is a book about pushing our species to the limit and how close to extinction we have become.

Many parts of this book are dense and technical. Sagan goes in depth on policy and the science of nuclear war and nuclear winter. I did not really understand the technical but I got the message.

A big part of the thesis of this book is laying out the idea and science behind nuclear winter. Basically that nuclear weapons are not fully contained and that the fall out would be devastating to the world and would not recognize borders. That the threat of nuclear winter changes the factors of nuclear deterrence.

Much of the science focused on the green house effect and climate change. Concepts that we are facing today. One could substitute nuclear war for climate change/AI/or some other global threat and this book would be relevant today.
Sagan actually did his doctoral thesis on the green house effect on Venus. It explains his fascination with climate change and constant work with it.

Much of the policy sections I was more interested in because of my political science background. I don’t feel like nuclear winter, deterrence factors, and other policies were talked about in my classes as they were in this book.

Notes:
There is the paradox that as we get ride of nuclear weapons the remaining ones become more powerful.

Kennedy spent an afternoon with his advisers going over the effects of nuclear war, threats, consequences, death tolls, etc as the end of the meeting he looked and said ‘and we call our selves the human race.’
Sagan suggested that every world leader with nuclear weapons should have meetings like this.

Finally:
It is insane that the world has nuclear weapons. We are a ticking time bomb. Again Sagan tried to warn us about what was to come but we did not listen.

[Frrobins · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Carl Sagan as a teenager growing up in the 90s. And because of my love of Carl Sagan I was given this book as a present, but as a teenager growing up on a diet of hope and optimism that the dawning of the new millennium promised, I had no interest in reading about nuclear war. The Soviet Union was gone. So this languished on my shelf for years.

And then Russia invaded the Ukraine. And then we have the messy situation in Israel and Palestine and suddenly the possibility of nuclear war breaking out doesn't seem so far fetched anymore. After reading an article about the increased likelihood of nuclear war I remembered I had this book and it felt like it was finally the time to read it.

Have I mentioned that I miss he 90s?

The biggest problem with this book, which is no fault of the authors, is that it is 30 years old. In some ways this does illuminate some interesting history, but I also ended up skipping sections that weren't very relevant. It did clarify what causes nuclear winter and it brought to light the fact that what is hit and burnt is a big contributing factor to how deadly it will be (a nuclear bomb detonating at a petroleum factory would be very bad news for us basically, but one over an uninhabited area would be much less of a cause for concern).

Overall, this is not a pleasant book to read, but a terrifying one, and its also sad that we have not made more headway in ridding the world of these weapons. I'm glad to be done with the book, though once again, I can't blame the authors for the dreadful subject material.

Once again, I miss the 90s.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, but dated. I wish Sagan’s vision of a possible nuclear de-escalation were realistic. Sadly he didn’t have to take the very real threat of non-state terrorist actors (not to mention demented state leaders) obtaining nuclear weapons. If you think Sagan’s view was bleak, just look at our modern nuclear reality. Now THAT is truly terrifying.

[Çisem Sarı · Rating 3 out of 5]

Olası bir Nükleer savaşta başımıza neler gelebileceğini farklı senaryolarla ortaya koyuyor. Başlarda daha yüksek bir ilgi düzeyiyle okurken sonlara doğru ilginiz biraz dağılabiliyor. Bunu da nispeten bir miktar kendini tekrar etmesine bağladım. Ancak; bilimsel ve siyasi aydınlanma açısından faydalı.

[Charlotte Falkner · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wonderful audiobook.To put me to sleep.

[Scott Kardel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never thought I would give a book by Carl Sagan (and Richard Turco) just 2 stars, but then this is a book about nuclear war and specifically the development and implications of nuclear winter. It is an important book that clearly shows that there can be no winners in even a limited nuclear war, but it isn't an especially happy book to read. The book was published 25 years ago and one of the hopes of the authors was that revelation that nuclear winter presents a danger to everyone on Earth would lead to disarmament, and while there has been some, there are still thousands of nuclear warheads in the world today.

[Laura L. Van Dam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Refleja los miedos que teníamos en los 80s acerca de un posible conflicto nuclear y tira datos e info científica sobre posibles consecuencias. Es bastante largo, por momentos demasiada info. Hoy en día carece de valor de relectura, estamos lejos de un conflicto así, pasamos por una etapa de desarme y posiblemente muchos datos quedaron obsoletos.

[Christopher Arregui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Más de 20 años y el libro sigue siendo relevante ante los peligros de una guerra nuclear a gran escala y sus consecuencias sobre la vida en este planeta