Arsenals of Folly

The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race

By: Richard Rhodes

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

From the Pulitzer Prize—winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb: the story of the entire postwar superpower arms race, climaxing during the Reagan-Gorbachev decade when the United States and the Soviet Union came within scant hours of nuclear war–and then nearly agreed to abolish nuclear weapons.

In a narrative that moves like a thriller, Rhodes sheds light on the Reagan administration’s unprecedented arms buildup in the early 1980s, as well as the arms-reduction campaign that followed, and Reagan’s famous 1986 summit meeting with Gorbachev. Rhodes’s detailed exploration of events of this time constitutes a prehistory of the neoconservatives, demonstrating that the manipulation of government and public opinion with fake intelligence and threat inflation that the administration of George W. Bush has used to justify the current “war on terror” and the disastrous invasion of Iraq were developed and applied in the Reagan era and even before.

Drawing on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants, and on a wealth of new documentation, memoir literature, and oral history that has become available only in the past ten years, Rhodes recounts what actually happened in the final years of the Cold War that led to its dramatic end. The story is new, compelling, and continually surprising–a revelatory re-creation of a hugely important era of our recent history.

The terrible choice Reagan made because of Star Wars pipe dream.

I enjoyed the book a lot it was very informative and interesting to listen to.

An excellent overview of the Regan/Gorbachev negotiations

A clear, strong vocal performance of a great book. An excellent primer on the history of the Cold War arms control personalities and the Regan and Gorbachev Iceland talks.

Clarity & Truth

Another in R. Rhodes great books on Nuclear weapons. His depth of analysis is tremendous. Russia, the U.S., Gorbachev & Reagan all explained with careful detail and balance. Very interesting & enlightening. On to his next book....

Another phenomenal work by Rhodes

This is the third book on Audible I've bought by Richard Rhodes and this is my personal favorite. Rhodes provides an unmatched level of detail and makes all the information feel very personal. I highly recommend this book to any Cold War history enthusiasts and this is a must read if you have read Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun as this book seamlessly transitions to the politics left off in the last two books. The narration is superb as well.

Story telling at its best

Richard Rhodes, once again, takes a complex story and brings it alive in both character and detail. I can't say enough about the compelling nature of Mr. Rhodes's writing (on whatever subject). Any of his books are highly recommended.