A realist response to nuclear weapons requires radical reform

What is a realist response to nuclear weapons? This new book by Rens van Munster (DIIS) and casper Sylvest (SDU) is animated by the idea that contemporary attempts to confront the challenge of nuclear weapons and other global security problems would benefit from richer historical foundations.

Returning to the decade of deep, thermonuclear anxiety inaugurated in the early 1950s, the authors closely examine an important, oppositional and resolutely global strand of political thought that combines realist insights about nuclear weapons with radical proposals for social and political transformation as the only escape from a profoundly endangered planet. Nuclear Realism is a highly original and provocative study that will be of great use to advanced undergraduates, graduates and scholars of political theory, International Relations and Cold War history.

To mark the publication of Nuclear Realism, DIIS organizes a public seminar on 'Nuclear Weapons and Democratic Politics' on May 17^th. The seminar will be followed by a reception and the opening of a photo exhibition on 'The Nuclear Machine: Atomic Metabolism on Display', which visually gauges the complex legacy of the nuclear age.