Doomsday Machines

Doomsday Machines

Home
About
Tags
Archive
Newsletters

Nuclear war

How I destroyed the world
A behind-the-scenes look at the creation of "PLAN A" (2017)
 • Alex Wellerstein
"It is obvious that the immediate destruction of the complete list of 66 cities would have an even more devastating effect on Russia"
The earliest postwar American planning for waging a full-scale nuclear war from 1945
 • Alex Wellerstein
Cutting the head off the Soviet chicken
"By Dawn's Early Light" (1990): a contrived, late-Cold War, made-for-TV nuclear thriller
 • Alex Wellerstein
"Launching missiles is your job."
The sublime banality of Frederick Wiseman's "Missile" (1988)
 • Alex Wellerstein
Bananas for BRAVO
An early attempt to visualize the broader implications of thermonuclear war
 • Alex Wellerstein
Will the survivors envy the dead?
Tracing the origins of a popular trope about nuclear war
 • Alex Wellerstein
"Nuclear weapons repel all thought, perhaps because they can end all thought"
Martin Amis on the difficulties of writing about nuclear war
 • Alex Wellerstein
Bolt out of the blue
Kathryn Bigelow's "A House of Dynamite"
 • 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
"Understanding nuclear weapons"
Techno-political nuclear graphic design in the 21st century
 • Alex Wellerstein
Nuclear families
The imagery of the "family" in fallout shelter pamphlets, 1959-1961
 • Alex Wellerstein
© 2026 Alex Wellerstein · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture