Doomsday Machines

Christmas at Ground Zero

Weird Al Yankovic's post-apocalyptic carol (1986)

Dec 25 • Alex Wellerstein

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Will the survivors envy the dead?

Tracing the origins of a popular trope about nuclear war

Dec 19 • Alex Wellerstein

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Working at Cold War Los Alamos

A conversation with the chemist Cheryl Rofer about her over thirty year career at Los Alamos

Dec 12 • Alex Wellerstein

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"The Most Awful Responsibility"

My new book on Truman and the bomb will be released on December 9!

Dec 4 • Alex Wellerstein

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November 2025

“Mars is signaling a dark star”

A vision of "The End of the World" from the beginning of the 20th century

Nov 28 • Alex Wellerstein

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"Nuclear weapons repel all thought, perhaps because they can end all thought"

Martin Amis on the difficulties of writing about nuclear war

Nov 14 • Alex Wellerstein

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Bolt out of the blue

Kathryn Bigelow's "A House of Dynamite"

Nov 7 • Alex Wellerstein

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October 2025

"I have sought to slaughter as few civilians as possible."

The rabid, apocalyptic Beat poetry that is "Mission with LeMay"

Oct 16 • Alex Wellerstein

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September 2025

Inventing the Doomsday Machine

It is not a thing a sane man would do

Sep 26 • Alex Wellerstein

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"Understanding nuclear weapons"

Techno-political nuclear graphic design in the 21st century

Sep 19 • Alex Wellerstein

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Critical mastery

The sublime art of nuclear posters

Sep 12 • Alex Wellerstein

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Irradiating the planet

Los Alamos scientists calculate the limits of radioactivity, 1947-1949

Sep 5 • Alex Wellerstein

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