Nukes Down Under

The West's Response to China's Strategic Buildup

By: Chris Knowles

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Ever since the conclusion of World War II, which was precipitated by the dropping of two atomic bombs, one each on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the specter of the nuclear annihilation of mankind on this “big blue marble” has hung over society like an omnipresent cloud. During the Cold War, which lasted from 1947 until 1991, conventional wisdom held that the end of life on Earth would eventually be brought about by the exchange of nuclear weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union. And then, in 1957, British author Nevil Shute wrote the incendiary novel On the Beach which chronicled the end of mankind. In it, the theory was postulated that the location of the last best hope for the survival of humanity lay in the Southern Hemisphere, more succinctly Australia. The worldwide impact of that novel has appeared to influence the political and cultural future of Australia to this very day.

Nukes Down Under captures the frailty of human existence