Who better than an experienced nuclear physicist — educated a journalist, practiced in experimental diagnostics, and directly involved in unfolding Cold War events — to supply a readable first-hand report and analysis of the world’s nuclear-weapon legacy?
“Nuclear Insights” is a searchable, hyperlinked history and resource: Its first Volume a history of the Cold War, and its second and third Volumes contain knowledgeable surveys of contemporary nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and international arms control.
In contrast to other histories and surveys, “Nuclear Insights” provides a perspective that is technically informed and knowledgeable, assembled from the personal involvement of Cold War insiders.Both its printed and eBook versions are highly readable and well documented — ideal for students, researchers, and future historians.
The lead author, following a liberal-arts education and 3 years active duty as a U.S. Navy officer, earned advanced degrees in nuclear engineering and physics — just as the fission process was beginning to be harnessed for peaceful applications. That launched his 40-year technical career at a government laboratory, engaging in experiments and measurements that became increasingly relevant to both peaceful and military applications of nuclear phenomena.
As a savvy insider, Dr. DeVolpi became appalled at the increasingly dangerous Cold War confrontation and the untempered nuclear-arms race — thus getting personally involved: professionally in arms-control and nonproliferation, privately as citizen and activist.
This brought him into never-imagined, awesome circles of non-government and government — individuals and officials — in the United States, the Soviet Union, and elsewhere. Being one of a few available technical experts with relevant hands-on laboratory experience, Dr. DeVolpi became a sympathetic and knowledgeable insider resource to irregular bands of citizen petitioners, while remaining a reliable asset for government officials.
Now, it is timely and opportune to disclose these unique experiences, here in the form of three book volumes “Nuclear Insights: The Cold War Legacy” derived from an earlier publication, “Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry.” The latter consisted of two very detailed, annotated volumes originated in collaboration with two American associates and a Soviet colleague. One coauthor, a nuclear engineer, emigrated from the former Soviet Union; the other, a physicist, was born in Canada. The Soviet contributor, a nuclear physicist, was in charge of thermonuclear-weapons design and testing at their national laboratory in western Siberia. All four of us went through episodes of personal and professional risk, even disdain and reprimand.
Though now retired from our national laboratories, we each remain concerned about the Cold War aftermath, as discussed in the second volume of “Nuclear Shadowboxing” and again in its “Nuclear Insights” derivative. Because of our diverse backgrounds, we’ve been able to directly and knowledgeably address a wide range of issues, technologies, traditions, and lessons resulting from the Cold War confrontation and subsequent collapse of the USSR. We weren’t bureaucrats or academics: We were working laboratory scientists who occasionally took on reluctant and modest leadership roles, sometimes official, sometimes unofficial.
Top-level accounts of the eventful Cold War — its nerve-wracking transition, and now the aftermath — have been capably rendered by other scientists, by historians, by politicians, and by professional journalists. “Nuclear Insights” supplements this lore by assembling, firstly, a technically qualified counterpoint, and, secondly, an insiders’ perspective about scientists and citizens at several levels of involvement.
This book recognizes both first-stringers and back-ups, all of whom earned their role in the history of nuclear sensibility.
Nuclear Insights: The Cold War Legacy. Volume 1: Nuclear Weapons and Public Dissent (An Insider History)
