COMMUNITY News:

The community is invited to join Samizdat Bookstore and Teahouse at 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 14 for a virtual chat with Alex Wellerstein about his new book, The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age. Dr. Wellerstein will give a short introduction to his book and then lead a casual discussion with the audience.

Wellerstein is an associate professor in the Science and Technology Studies program at the Stevens Institute of Technology and a visiting researcher at the Nuclear Knowledges program, Center for International Studies, Science Po, Paris. He is the author of Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States and is perhaps best known as the creator of NUKEMAP, the world’s most popular online nuclear weapons effects simulator. He is also the author of the Doomsday Machines blog, and he has taught at Harvard, MIT and Georgetown University.

In The Most Awful Responsibility, Wellerstein asks us to consider what if President Truman’s decision around the atomic bomb wasn’t what everyone thinks it was? He makes the startling case that Truman was possibly the most anti-nuclear American president of the 20th century, but his ambitions were strongly constrained by the domestic and international politics of the postwar world and the early Cold War. This book is a must-read for all who want to truly understand not only why the bomb was dropped on Japan but also why it has not been used since. Richard Rhodes says, “I thought I knew the story but learned much that I didn’t know.”

Samizdat Bookstore and Teahouse, 174 Central Park Square, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 5-8 p.m. Mondays for supper club. Find more information at samizdatbookstore.com.