Listen free for 30 days
-
The Dead Hand
- The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 20 hrs and 46 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $32.05
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
Command and Control
- Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
- Written by: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind.
-
-
Excellent
- By grant on 2020-11-27
Written by: Eric Schlosser
-
The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- Written by: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.
-
-
informative, but boring
- By Will on 2024-03-18
Written by: David E. Hoffman
-
Nuclear War
- A Scenario
- Written by: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.
-
-
A scary look into hell on earth
- By C Anderson on 2024-05-02
Written by: Annie Jacobsen
-
The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- Written by: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
-
-
another great listen from Annie Jacobson
- By TyCB on 2020-07-21
Written by: Annie Jacobsen
-
Phenomena
- The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis
- Written by: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 40 years, the US government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the navy, air force, and army - and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs.
-
-
phenomenal writing
- By TyCB on 2019-10-16
Written by: Annie Jacobsen
-
The Avoidable War
- The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China
- Written by: Kevin Rudd
- Narrated by: Kevin Rudd, Rafe Beckley
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer, and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily. Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has studied, lived in, and worked with China for more than forty years, is one of the very few people who can offer real insight into the mindsets of the leadership whose judgment will determine if a war will be fought.
-
-
A contribution to world peace
- By Allan Cain on 2022-05-09
Written by: Kevin Rudd
-
Command and Control
- Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety
- Written by: Eric Schlosser
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 20 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America's nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved - and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind.
-
-
Excellent
- By grant on 2020-11-27
Written by: Eric Schlosser
-
The Billion Dollar Spy
- A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal
- Written by: David E. Hoffman
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
While getting into his car on the evening of February 16, 1978, the chief of the CIA's Moscow station was handed an envelope by an unknown Russian. Its contents stunned the Americans: details of top-secret Soviet research and development in military technology that was totally unknown to the United States.
-
-
informative, but boring
- By Will on 2024-03-18
Written by: David E. Hoffman
-
Nuclear War
- A Scenario
- Written by: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.
-
-
A scary look into hell on earth
- By C Anderson on 2024-05-02
Written by: Annie Jacobsen
-
The Pentagon's Brain
- An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency
- Written by: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Discover the definitive history of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, in this Pulitzer Prize finalist from the author of the New York Times best seller Area 51. No one has ever written the history of the Defense Department's most secret, most powerful, and most controversial military science R&D agency. In the first-ever history about the organization, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen draws on inside sources, exclusive interviews, private documents, and declassified memos to paint a picture of DARPA, or "the Pentagon's brain".
-
-
another great listen from Annie Jacobson
- By TyCB on 2020-07-21
Written by: Annie Jacobsen
-
Phenomena
- The Secret History of the U.S. Government's Investigations into Extrasensory Perception and Psychokinesis
- Written by: Annie Jacobsen
- Narrated by: Annie Jacobsen
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than 40 years, the US government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the navy, air force, and army - and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times best-selling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs.
-
-
phenomenal writing
- By TyCB on 2019-10-16
Written by: Annie Jacobsen
-
The Avoidable War
- The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the US and Xi Jinping's China
- Written by: Kevin Rudd
- Narrated by: Kevin Rudd, Rafe Beckley
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer, and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily. Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has studied, lived in, and worked with China for more than forty years, is one of the very few people who can offer real insight into the mindsets of the leadership whose judgment will determine if a war will be fought.
-
-
A contribution to world peace
- By Allan Cain on 2022-05-09
Written by: Kevin Rudd
Publisher's Summary
“A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve Coll
The Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the twentieth century the two superpowers had perfected the science of mass destruction and possessed nuclear weapons with the combined power of a million Hiroshimas. What’s more, a Soviet biological warfare machine was ready to produce bacteria and viruses to sicken and kill millions.
In The Dead Hand, a thrilling narrative history drawing on new archives and original research and interviews, David E. Hoffman reveals how presidents, scientists, diplomats, soldiers, and spies confronted the danger and changed the course of history. The Dead Hand captures the inside story in both the United States and the Soviet Union, giving us an urgent and intimate account of the last decade of the arms race. With access to secret Kremlin documents, Hoffman chronicles Soviet internal deliberations that have long been hidden. He reveals that weapons designers in 1985 laid a massive “Star Wars” program on the desk of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to compete with President Reagan, but Gorbachev refused to build it. He unmasks the cover-up of the Soviet biological weapons program. He tells the exclusive story of one Soviet microbiologist’s quest to build a genetically engineered super-germ—it would cause a mild illness, a deceptive recovery, then a second, fatal attack. And he details the frightening history of the Doomsday Machine, known as the Dead Hand, which would launch a retaliatory nuclear strike if the Soviet leaders were wiped out. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the dangers remained. Soon rickety trains were hauling unsecured nuclear warheads across the Russian steppe; tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium lay unguarded in warehouses; and microbiologists and bomb designers were scavenging for food to feed their families. The Dead Hand offers fresh and startling insights into Reagan and Gorbachev, the two key figures of the end of the Cold War, and draws colorful, unforgettable portraits of many others who struggled, often valiantly, to save the world from the most terrifying weapons known to man.
What the critics say
“Authoritative and chilling. . . . A readable, many-tentacled account of the decades-long military standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. . . . The Dead Hand is deadly serious, but this story can verge on pitch-black comedy—Dr. Strangelove as updated by the Coen Brothers.”—The New York Times
“Revealing, alarming and compelling throughout. . . . This richly reported account vividly chronicles the insanity of the arms race. . . . Taut, crisply written. . . . The Dead Hand puts human faces on the bureaucracy of mutual assured destruction, even as it underscores the institutional inertia that drove this monster forward. . . . A fine book indeed.”—T. J. Stiles, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“In a compelling narrative packed with vivid detail and telling quotations, Hoffman tells the story of how Reagan and Gorbachev halted the arms race.”—The Times Literary Supplement
More from the same
What listeners say about The Dead Hand
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2023-01-14
Exactly as described.
I found it to be detailed but not exactly balanced in its depiction of both sides of the war.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Nick Spector
- 2019-01-30
Good if you’re interested in political science, but...
Amazing in-depth reporting on the inner workings of both Cold War superpowers. This is a book for people who enjoy political thinking/politics/policymaking and expansive historical accounts. The writer does an excellent job of balanced reporting - there’s very little good-vs-evil skew to either side here. Instead, the motivations behind the actions and decisions of US and USSR are contextualized.
If you’re looking for a compelling and gripping Cold War narrative, this isn’t the book for you. Overall, I found that while interesting in theory, this book gets bogged down in far too much detailed examination of the bureaucracy and bureaucrats of the Cold War.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!