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Title: The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons by Jonathan Schell ISBN: 0-8050-5960-1 Publisher: Henry Holt & Company, Inc. Pub. Date: May, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00

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Average Customer Rating: 2.5 (4 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: The definitive book on the contemporary nuclear problem
Comment: Schell's thoroughly researched and clearly voiced call to action is a must read for anyone concerned about nuclear danger.

This book highlights the instability and inherint risk to the nuclear status quo, and poses as series of pragmatic possibilities for moving away from the brink of annihilation.

Schell speaks with leading nuclear experts from the US, Russia and Europe--scientists who created the weapons, generals who prepared to use them, politicans who built policies around them, and scholars who have studied these issues for years--and lets them express their thoughts and concerns on the currnet nuclear situation. And it soon becomes clear that those who know the most about these weapons are those who recognize best the folly of relying upon them indefinitely.

In simple and accessible prose, Schell analizes a number of complex issues, introducing the readers to a number of crucial concepts such as "horizontal disarmament" and pushing the reader to imagine what a world without nuclear weapons might look like (not an easy question). He moves beyond idealism and wishful thinking, and directs the debate towards what can and must be done.

Few books contain such a wealth of valuable, primary source information in such a concise form. Fewer still contain such original, thoughtful and timely insight. A must read for both the expert and the novice.

Rating: 1
Summary: the mindlessness of logic
Comment: About six months ago I read a postion paper posted on a US Army War College site avocating the reasons why we must maintain nuclear weapons indefinitely. The reasoning & logic expressed perfectly mirrored Jonathan Schell's. I taught a college level course on nuclear war, and I can assure you Schell's logic like his counterpart only confuses the ignorant masses while smugly re-assurring those with a vested interest in maintaining nuclear weapons of the stupidty and naivete' of the opposite number. Thus, the blind lead willfully the ignorant to a future madness not yet envisaged. __JPC__

Rating: 3
Summary: Visionary and Hopeful, yet lacks a strategies
Comment: This book comes at a time of important decisions concerning the continued existence of nuclear weapons in a world groping for an alternative. With the formal joining of the nuclear club by India and Pakistan the discussion on the continued existence of nuclear weapons takes on a renewed urgency.

Mr. Schell does a fine job of explaining the difficulty in getting to zero. Implicit in his work is that that the world as it presently is structured cannot escape the"security dilemma". Nuclear aboition in such a world is a remote possibility so long as nations remain in the "self-help" model of international relations. The continued anarchic situation in international affairs leaves the world with the age old game of the balance of power. What is needed is a re-conceptualiztion of how nations can relate to one another and strategies for a new international order founded on renewed spiritual insight and vision grounded in a practical expression through a new politics concerned with justice and ecological responsibility--which in the final analysis is the way out of pending conflict and is in all nations' interests. Until a commitment to a new way is made we will continue to be plagued by the nuclear threat--virtual or otherwise.

This book,serves the important purpose of reminding us that we cannot allow things to drift. History has portals of opportunity which close quite quickly. It is the time to seize the opportunity to take measures like de-alerting and horizontal disarmament described by Mr. Schell now while we have the chance. Sooner or later in an imperfect world something is bound to go wrong. Mr. Schell calls us to the task that remains unfinished. As ordinary citizens , in effect, he is asking, "What are we waiting for ?"