COMMUNITY News:

Samizdat Bookstore & Teahouse is hosting Jeff Colvin, author of Avoiding Apocalypse: How Science and Scientists Ended the Cold War, for an author talk 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 18 at Fuller Lodge.

There will be tea before the talk and a book signing afterwards.

Avoiding Apocalypse tells the little-known story of the worldwide scientists’ boycott of the Soviet Union that set in motion an astonishing sequence of events.

Starting simultaneously with the rise to power of an obscure Soviet bureaucrat named Mikhail Gorbachev, the scientists’ boycott led to the end not only of the Cold War, but also of the Soviet Union itself.

Colvin also tells the story of how and how the Cold War stand-down unraveled as the longstanding American consensus on strategic deterrence and nuclear arms control broke down.

He will also discuss how the war in Ukraine has re-ignited Cold War tensions and how people might navigate them.

Author Jeff Colvin

Colvin is a scientist, activist, and writer, and has spent the past 45 years as a research physicist helping to develop the science that has made technically possible a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, one linchpin of the Cold War stand-down.

He is the author or co-author of nearly 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and with Jon Larsen has co-written Extreme Physics, now the standard graduate-level textbook in the field. He divides his time between Livermore, California and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Samizdat Bookstore & Teahouse is a local independent bookstore with books and teas at 174 Central Park Square. Learn more and find the full calendar of upcoming events at samizdatbookstore.com.