This culminating volume in Richard Rhodes's monumental and prizewinning history of nuclear weapons offers the first comprehensive narrative of post--Cold War nuclear challenges. It examines the nuclear turning point the present day represents and casts a hopeful eye to the future.With his extraordinary depth of knowledge and understanding, Rhodes makes clear how the five original nuclear powers--Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and especially the United States--have struggled with new realities. He shows us how the stage was set for a second tragic war when Iraq secretly destroyed its nuclear infrastructure and reveals the real reasons George W. Bush chose to fight a second ground war. We see how the efforts of U.S. weapons labs laid the groundwork for nuclear disarmament in the former Soviet Union; how and why South Africa secretly built and then destroyed a small nuclear arsenal; how Jimmy Carter's private diplomacy prevented another Korean War. Rhodes assesses...