Life After Nuclear War

The title of this book is not without irony, for the author makes clear that the living would have reason to envy the dead in a post-nuclear war situation. Currently fashionable scenarios for limited nuclear war become quickly appalling as one sifts through the technical details on the horrendous consequences of even a "limited attack" on the United States. As in the case of the recently published Japanese study Hiroshima and Nagasaki (reviewed in Foreign Affairs, Fall 1981, p. 201), the author assesses the economic, social and psychological damage of nuclear devastation as well as the military consequences. He is pessimistic about the speed and depth of post-attack recovery.