Journalists Weinberger and Hodge present a fascinating, kaleidoscopic portrait of nuclear weaponry - from Tehran, Iran to Oak Ridge Tennessee.
In A Nuclear Family Vacation, husband-and-wife journalists Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger hit the open road to explore the secretive world of nuclear weaponry. Along the way, they soon realise that their travels are unearthing more questions than answers: why are nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert? Is there such a thing as a suitcase nuke? Is Iran really building the bomb? Together, they lift the lid on the uncertain role of nuclear weapons in the modern world and ask if the future is as terrifying as it seems.
Criss-crossing ten US states and five countries, Hodge and Weinberger visit top-secret locations: from the Esfahan Uranium Conversion Facility in Iran to 'Site R', a bunker known as the 'Underground Pentagon', rumoured to be Vice-President Cheney's personal 'undisclosed location' on 9/11; and from the former Soviet Union's network of closed cities, housing secret nuclear sites, to the Marshall Islands, which the US has turned into a nuclear playground of epic scale. Their atomic road trip reveals plans to revitalize the US nuclear arsenal, even as the US government pushes other countries to disarm.
Lively, topical and probing, A Nuclear Family Vacation reveals unknown and entertaining stories about the nuclear world.