Doomsday Machines

Doomsday Machines

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1950s

A long look at a QUICK STRIKE
The grim realities of a faux nuclear war plan from 1958
 • Alex Wellerstein
"Civil defense should include spiritual civil defense"
The role of religious organizations in preparing for and recovering from nuclear war, 1951-1956
 • Alex Wellerstein
Forgetting the bomb
Can nuclear weapons be un-invented?
 • Alex Wellerstein
Bananas for BRAVO
An early attempt to visualize the broader implications of thermonuclear war
 • Alex Wellerstein
"Zero time was speeding toward me like a car you cannot dodge"
A gripping first-hand account of a nuclear test from 1957
 • Alex Wellerstein
Will the survivors envy the dead?
Tracing the origins of a popular trope about nuclear war
 • Alex Wellerstein
"I have sought to slaughter as few civilians as possible."
The rabid, apocalyptic Beat poetry that is "Mission with LeMay"
 • Alex Wellerstein
Inventing the Doomsday Machine
It is not a thing a sane man would do
 • Alex Wellerstein
Critical mastery
The sublime art of nuclear posters
 • Alex Wellerstein
Nuclear families
The imagery of the "family" in fallout shelter pamphlets, 1959-1961
 • Alex Wellerstein
Civil Defense and Preppers
A brief history of Preppers, part 1
 • Alex Wellerstein
Nuke Beat
Gregory Corso's 1958 poem, "BOMB"
 • Alex Wellerstein
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