Wittner Adds New Book on Nuclear Disarmament Movement

In the prize-winning One World or None, the first volume of his trilogy The Struggle Against the Bomb, University history professor Lawrence S. Wittner explored the international nuclear disarmament movement. Now, in Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970 (641 pages, $65 cloth, $24.95 paper, Stanford University Press), he continues the story of humanity\rquote s efforts to ward off nuclear annihilation.

An account of international nuclear disarmament, Resisting the Bomb provides a comprehensive study of worldwide resistance to nuclear weapons throughout the mid to late 1950s and the 1960s. In chronicling international efforts to avert nuclear devastation, Wittner, a former president of the Council on Peace Research in History (now known as the Peace History Society), drew upon a variety of resources. Many of the documents cited, including those culled from the files of Great Britain\rquote s Atomic Energy Authority, the U.S. State Department, and the Community Party Central Committee of the former Soviet Union, were categorized as "top secret" until quite recently. Those declassified materials, together with excerpts from 118 manuscript collections, 28 personal or oral history interviews, and 48 peace movement periodicals from nations around the world, present a complete picture of peace activists\rquote success in curbing the nuclear arms race and averting nuclear war.

Resisting the Bomb affords an engrossing look at how the partial test ban treaty, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and other 1960s arms control measures evolved. It also offers hope that continued vigilance in the form of public activism will ensure a future free from the threat of nuclear war.

Wittner, who earned his master\rquote s degree in history at the University of Wisconsin and his doctorate at Columbia University, has been a full-time faculty member at the University since 1974. He is scheduled to sign copies of Resisting the Bomb at a reception on Saturday, Feb. 21, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany.

Carol Olechowski