Annie Jacobsen – Nuclear War: A Scenario (2024)
A cinematic glimpse into Armageddon.
March 2025 • Non-fiction
Nuclear War: A Scenario, written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen, appeared on my radar through a combination of end-of-year lists (which I can't ever help but scroll) paired with the news of Denis Villeneuve potentially picking it up for a film after he wraps up Dune: Messiah; my interest wasn't just piqued—it ballooned into mushroom cloud proportions.
From the moment I started reading, I felt an invisible clock ticking down—like the relentless timepiece that permeates the soundtrack of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. My experience reading Nuclear War, no doubt influenced by the news I read beforehand, was instantly cinematic. Its scenes unfolded vividly as I gobbled up its pages.
Of course, I've read books about war before. They are often admirable, dense, factually accurate, immensely well-researched tomes. But in their factualness, they aren't the most human reads. They deal with what happened and why it happened and how it happened, and they get it right, but they can read like reports—making it seem as if the reader isn't meant to feel too much about it.
John Hersey's Hiroshima was first to show me a more human way to write about war. It recounts the aftermath of nuclear devastation through the eyes of its survivors. Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War follows in a similar tradition by shifting the focus to the terrifying moments leading up to the catastrophe—mapping out, in chilling detail, how a modern nuclear conflict might unfold.
She outlines a scenario: nuclear missiles are launched at the United States by North Korea. The United States has six minutes to respond and launch fifty missiles back at North Korea's weapon sites and command centres. But the limited range of their missiles means they have to fly over Russia, inadvertently inviting them to their doomsday party: the clock is ticking, and in 72 minutes the world as we know it—civilisation as we know it—is no more.
Jacobsen's thoroughly researched retelling—she spoke to dozens of experts over more than a decade—covers the catastrophe minute-by-minute. Reading its 400 pages feels like watching a high-stakes thriller that also manages to get across the most human ramifications of a civilisation-destroying catastrophe. It made me marvel at the complexity of nuclear warfare, question the stupidity of those with their ham-fisted fingers on the buttons, and—given recent events—feel somewhat more terrified of the future.
Further reading
Daniël van der Winden
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen
Published by Dutton in 2024
One book recommendation, once per month.
Book #25 • March 2025
