Thermonuclear Monarchy

During his impeachment proceedings, Richard Nixon boasted, "I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in twenty-five minutes seventy million people will be dead." In this incisive, masterfully argued new book, award-winning social theorist Elaine Scarry demonstrates that the power of one [...]
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During his impeachment proceedings, Richard Nixon boasted, "I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in twenty-five minutes seventy million people will be dead." In this incisive, masterfully argued new book, award-winning social theorist Elaine Scarry demonstrates that the power of one leader to obliterate millions of people with a nuclear weapon - a possibility that remains very real even in the wake of the Cold War - deeply violates American constitutional rights and is fundamentally at odds with the principles of social contract. When a leader can single-handedly decide to deploy a nuclear weapon, we live in a state of "thermonuclear monarchy" not democracy. By reasserting the American Constitution, nuclear weapons can be abolished, thermonuclear monarchy can end, and the safety of the earth can be secured.