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Cutting the head off the Soviet chicken
"By Dawn's Early Light" (1990): a contrived, late-Cold War, made-for-TV nuclear thriller
Feb 27
•
Alex Wellerstein
25
8
1
"Launching missiles is your job."
The sublime banality of Frederick Wiseman's "Missile" (1988)
Feb 20
•
Alex Wellerstein
42
5
3
Hitting the jackpot
William Gibson's disturbingly plausible 21st-century slow disaster
Feb 13
•
Alex Wellerstein
40
8
6
Bananas for BRAVO
An early attempt to visualize the broader implications of thermonuclear war
Feb 6
•
Alex Wellerstein
40
3
2
January 2026
"Take me to your shelter, leader!"
Do you have what it takes to be a shelter manager after World War III breaks out? Take this quiz from 1973 and find out!
Jan 29
•
Alex Wellerstein
48
12
1
Playing at the End of the World
An interview with historian and game designer Malcolm Craig about post-apocalyptic tabletop role playing games in the Cold War
Jan 22
•
Alex Wellerstein
41
7
7
You too can survive a nuclear war — if you have a flying car
The essential contradictions of Dean Ing’s Survivalist novel “Pulling Through” (1983)
Jan 13
•
Alex Wellerstein
36
14
2
"Zero time was speeding toward me like a car you cannot dodge"
A gripping first-hand account of a nuclear test from 1957
Jan 1
•
Alex Wellerstein
60
7
5
December 2025
Christmas at Ground Zero
Weird Al Yankovic's post-apocalyptic carol (1986)
Dec 25, 2025
•
Alex Wellerstein
35
6
2
Will the survivors envy the dead?
Tracing the origins of a popular trope about nuclear war
Dec 19, 2025
•
Alex Wellerstein
30
7
2
Working at Cold War Los Alamos
A conversation with the chemist Cheryl Rofer about her over thirty year career at Los Alamos
Dec 12, 2025
•
Alex Wellerstein
61
3
2
"The Most Awful Responsibility"
My new book on Truman and the bomb will be released on December 9!
Dec 4, 2025
•
Alex Wellerstein
44
11
8
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