The Unfinished Twentieth Century : The Crisis of Arms Control

Jonathan Schell suggests that the essential story of the twentieth century was the gigantic development of humankind's capacity for self-destruction, with the rise in many forms of policies of extermination. The author examines the legacy this leaves for the new millennium: the crisis of nuclear arms control that has arisen with the unravelling of the ABM Treaty, the stalemate of the START talks, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia, as well as perhaps East Asia and the Middle East. Jonathan Schell suggests that the world now faces a stark choice between denuclearisation, the abolition of all nuclear weapons, or full nuclearisation, as the technology and materials seep around the world.