War Stars: The Superweapon and the American ImaginationIn this new and expanded edition of an already classic work, H. Bruce Franklin brings the epic story of the superweapon and the American imagination into the ominous twenty-first century, demonstrating its continuing importance both to comprehending our current predicament and to finding ways to escape from it. Sweeping through two centuries of American culture and military history, Franklin traces the evolution of superweapons from Robert Fulton's eighteenth-century submarine through the strategic bomber, atomic bomb, and Star Wars to a twenty-first century dominated by "weapons of mass destruction," real and imagined. Interweaving culture, science, technology, and history, he shows how and why the American pursuit of the ultimate defensive weapon?guaranteed to end all war and bring universal triumph to American ideals?has led our nation and the world into an epoch of terror and endless war. |
Contents
Imagining Our Weapons | 3 |
Victory through Air Power | 77 |
Chain Reactions | 112 |
Dont Worry Its Only Science Fiction | 131 |
Atomic Decision | 149 |
The Rise of Nuclear Culture | 155 |
American Science Fiction | 162 |
Early Warnings | 170 |
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actually aerial Air Force air power airplanes American culture annihilation Army atomic bombs atomic energy atomic weapons attack battle become Billy Mitchell bombers Britain British campaign century Chinese cities cities of Japan civilian populations civilization Command defense designed destroy destruction deterrence devastation Dresden early Edison electric enemy explosive fantasies fight film fleet flying future future-war fiction future-war novels genius German global Heinlein Hiroshima human ideology imagined industrial invasion invented Iraq Japan Japanese launch machine Magazine mass military missiles Mitchell's modern nation naval Navy Nazi nuclear arms race nuclear weapons offensive peace planes President Project published radioactive raids Robert Fulton Russia Saturday Evening Post science fiction science-fiction secret ships Sims-Edison Soviet Union space Star Wars story Strangelove Strategic Air Strategic Bombing submarine superweapons targets technological terror thermonuclear thousand torpedo ultimate weapon United victory Vietnam vision warfare warheads warships World War II Yellow Peril York