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The Doomsday Machine cover art

The Doomsday Machine

By: Daniel Ellsberg
Narrated by: Steven Cooper
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Summary

At the same time former presidential advisor Daniel Ellsberg famously took the top-secret Pentagon Papers, he also took with him a chilling cache of top secret documents related to America's nuclear program in the 1960s. Here for the first time he reveals the contents of those documents and makes clear their shocking relevance for today.

The Doomsday Machine is Ellsberg's hair-raising insider's account of the most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization, whose legacy - and renewal under the Obama administration - threatens the very survival of humanity. It is scarcely possible to estimate the true dangers of our present nuclear policies without penetrating the secret realities of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, when Ellsberg had high-level access to them. No other insider has written so candidly of that long-classified history, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era. Ellsberg's analysis of recent research on nuclear winter shows that even a 'small' nuclear exchange would cause billions of deaths by global nuclear famine. Ellsberg, in the end, offers steps we can take under a new administration to avoid nuclear catastrophe.

Framed as a memoir, this thriller with cloak-and-dagger intrigue places Ellsberg back in his natural role as whistle-blower. It is a real-life Dr. Strangelove story but an ultimately hopeful - and powerfully important - audiobook.

©2017 Bloomsbury US (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about The Doomsday Machine

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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting book - hideous audiobook!

The subject of this book is really very interesting. He has had an interesting and varied career deep within the American apparatus behind the planning and organisation of the nuclear arsenal. He makes a compelling argument for why the oft quoted defense of "deterrence" for holding vast nuclear arsenal is a bit of a tautology.

However, the narrator is hideous. Truly awful. Utterly and totally unlistenable to. At several points, it is completely indistinguishable from a very poor synthesized voice. In fact, it's probably worse as he doesn't seem to be aware of punctuation or what it's for.

A shame, I have had to download the book to read and return the audio book purely because the narration is so awful

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8 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The Tragedy Of Truth.

Man is, man's worst enemy. It goes without saying that we will either die out as a race slowly due to our incapacity to deal with and resolve Climate Change.... or destroy and poison our planet through Nuclear confrontation and contamination. Resulting in a world of famine and lawlessness. We are such a sad sad animal. I hope this will change, I truly do, but unless Human Mankind can grasp the futility of our current paths then I fear we are doomed to wipe ourselves out... Including all our biodiversity. Good listen.... if you have the heart.

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2 people found this helpful

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Actually gave me nightmares.

this book cyrstalised all my assumptions and understanding of the futility of a nuclear arsenal and especially a First Strike capability. the author's insight is hugely enlightening and surprising if not shocking.

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2 people found this helpful

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  • 28-01-18

Terrifying

A truly terrifying book that I is without question a must read for all. highly recommended

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    3 out of 5 stars
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There really isn't much new in this

This is not really anything new in this and not as well written as the dead hand.

The narrator is awful - sounds like Google maps gps guidance.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Partially automated narration

This is a book of great import and value, written by one of history’s most fascinating & conflicted individuals…however, the narration is partially automated and borders on unlistenable in places. It’s unbearable at 1.1x which is my default speed. There are any number of text to speech apps, but Audible should be better. This recording really isn’t.

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Appropriately horrifying

A must read for those who wish to understand what goes on behind the scenes in nuclear planning, or the world in general.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Eye opening book

A harrowing account of one of the greatest dangers to human existence on earth and how close at times we have come to orchestrating our own destruction . Also shows the callous disregard for human life by the powers that be and their willingness to destroy humanity. The narrator was a bit monotonous at moments but it just emphasise the machine like perception of our demise, over all a very good listen.

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