Nuclear Weapons: An International History

About this episode

The episode explores the international history of nuclear weapons through the insights of guest David Holloway.

For four years—from July 16, 1945, the date of the first atomic test, to August 29, 1949, when the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device—the history of nuclear weapons might appear to be an exclusively American story. But even that is misleading. From the earliest theorization of the chain reaction, nuclear development was international: a web of scientific collaboration, technological transfer, espionage, and strategic imitation. As my guest David Holloway argues, nuclear weapons have always had an international history—one that can only be understood by examining not just individual states, but their relationships, perceptions, and interactions. To approach nuclear weapons in this way, he suggests, “requires an effort to understand the different parties involved, their strategies, their policies, their behavior, and, above all, their relationships and interactions.” In this conversation, we explore that history—from Los Alamos to Moscow, from Atoms for Peace to nuclear brinkmanship, and from non-proliferation to the limits of the nuclear order itself. D avid Holloway is Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History , Professor of Political Science, and Senior…

People in this episode

Host: Al Zambone

Guest: David Holloway

Topics covered

• nuclear weapons
• international history
• scientific collaboration
• strategic imitation
• non-proliferation
• nuclear order

Keywords

• nuclear weapons
• international history
• atomic test
• Soviet Union
• Los Alamos
• nuclear brinkmanship
• non-proliferation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Stanford University

Books & works: Atoms for Peace

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