This book was right up my alley -- combining the topics of nuclear weaponry, plate tectonics, and international politics. Full of information on both the history of atomic weaponry development and current status of testing and anti-proliferation efforts. The book was a bit dense at times, but really made the concepts understandable. Definitely worth reading to better understand these weapons that could turn our world into something we don't recognize. Recommended reading.

I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed above are my own.

The Doomsday Clock of the ‘Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ was devised in the early years of the Cold War as an arresting visual image to dramatise the risk of nuclear war. On its first appearance, in June 1947, it was set at seven minutes to midnight. The time has subsequently been adjusted to calibrate rising or relaxing international tension.

In 1963, for example, the Test-Ban Treaty between the USSR, the USA and the UK, saw the hands moved back to twelve minutes to midnight, only to move forward to seven minutes to midnight again in 1968, reflecting, among other factors, China and France having gone nuclear (in 1964 and 1968 respectively) and then thermonuclear (1967 and 1968 respectively).

The end of the Cold War saw the minute hand move out of the last quadrant for the first time (to 17 minutes to midnight in 1991) but by 1996 it had slipped back to nine minutes to midnight (reflecting the nuclear status of India and Pakistan; the risks of further proliferation; and the failure to make significant reductions in the numbers of nuclear weapons). In late 2016 the clock was re-set at two and a half minutes to midnight: the closest setting to Doomsday since 1952, when the US went thermonuclear.

Lynn R. Sykes is one of the scientists who has been working to turn back the clock and ‘Silencing the Bomb’ is, as its subtitle announces, the story of ‘One Scientist’s Quest to Halt Nuclear Testing’.

The problem with halting nuclear testing (or nuclear disarmament) is being able to monitor what the other side is doing, to assure oneself that their actions match their fine words. This is epitomised by the phrase “Trust, but verify” – a Russian proverb which President Reagan employed in relation to the December 1987 signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which paved the way for the first actual reduction of nuclear arsenals in the history of the Bomb.

The 1963 Test-Ban Treaty outlawed tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. These media could be relatively easily monitored but that still left underground testing and this is where Sykes and like-minded scientists stepped in. Sykes is a seismologist and his expertise, originally fashioned to measure earthquakes, has proved invaluable for monitoring underground nuclear testing in order to ensure that all parties honoured their agreements, and thus provides the essential underpinning for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty which, as its name suggests, bans all forms of testing.

Unfortunately, however, it is only comprehensive in name, for whilst it was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1996, it has still not, at the time of writing, been ratified by China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan or the United States, although eight of these powers have not actually tested since 1998.

Sykes’s book, which covers the story of banning nuclear testing in detail from 1974 to the present day, is an illuminating discussion of the science and politics of the subject from someone who clearly knows what they’re talking about and who has the capacity to make the scientific material accessible to all, without giving the impression of ‘dumbing down.’

Whatever the imperfections of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, we should certainly feel grateful to the author not only for his ‘insider’s’ telling of this story but even more for his personally helping to push back the Doomsday clock by disproving the claims of Congressional ‘hawks’ that the Soviet Union was cheating on the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty.

Just one query: do atom bombs actually tick? I suspect that, like Doomsday clocks, the answer is ‘no’. If that is the case, then can they really be silenced?

This book is an excellent insiders tale of nuclear testing and limiting. The author explains the science behind verification clearly. This is scientific history at its best.