Now combined in one volume, these two books helped focus national attention in the early 1980s on the movement for a nuclear freeze. "The Fate of the Earth" painted a chilling picture of the planet in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, while "The Abolition" offered a proposal for full-scale nuclear disarmament. With the recent tensions in India and Pakistan, and concerns about nuclear proliferation around the globe, public attention is once again focused on the worldwide nuclear situation. The author is at the forefront of the discussion. In February 1998, his lengthy essay constituted the centerpiece of a special, widely distributed issue of "The Nation" dealing with the nuclear arms race. The relevance of his two books for today's debates is undeniable, as many experts assert that the nuclear situation is more dangerous than ever.
"Reviews of" The Fate of the Earth
"This is a work of enormous force. There are moments when it seems to hurtle almost out of control, across an extraordinary range of fact and thought. But in the end, it accomplishes what no other work has managed to do in the years of the nuclear age. It compels us--and compel is the right word--to confront head on the nuclear peril."
--"New York Times Book Review"
"There have been thousands of commentaries on what this new destructive power of man means; but my guess is that Schell's book . . . will become the classic statement of the emerging consciousness."
--Max Lerner, "New Republic"
"Reviews of" The Abolition
"As always, Schell is interesting and ingenious, eloquent and sometimes moving. He presents his case with clarity, and with candor about its possible shortcomings."
--"New Republic"
"A reasoned argument. . . . As this work will do much to stimulate the ongoing nuclear debate, it is highly recommended."
--"Library Journal"

"This book mounts perhaps the most impressive argument ever made that there exists a viable and desirable alternative to the continued reliance on war." -"The New York Times" At times of global crisis, Jonathan Schell's writings have offered important alternatives to conventional thinking. Now, as conflict escalates around the world, Schell gives us an impassioned, provocative book that points the way out of the unparalleled devastation of the twentieth century toward another, more peaceful path.Tracing the expansion of violence to its culmination in nuclear stalemate, Schell uncovers a simultaneous but little-noted history of nonviolent action at every level of political life. His investigation ranges from the revolutions of America, France, and Russia, to the people's wars of China and Vietnam, to the great nonviolent events of modern times-including Gandhi's independence movement in India and the explosion of civic activity that brought about the surprising collapse of the Soviet Union.Suggesting foundations of an entirely new kind on which to construct an enduring peace, "The Unconquerable World" is a bold book of sweeping significance.

Now in paperback, Jonathan Schell's "The Seventh Decade" lays bare the fearful shape that nuclear danger has unexpectedly assumed in the twenty-first century. Far from disappearing with the cold war, the bomb is today in the midst of a worldwide revival. The invasion of Iraq, the nuclear programme of North Korea and Iran, the rising danger of nuclear terrorism, and the reinvigoration of the nuclear establishments among the old cold war rivals have all put the nuclear issue back on the world's front pages and returned it to the centre of geopolitical strife.Schell addresses the fundamental questions: How and why has nuclear danger revived? Where are we heading? What can be done? And, he argues that half measures will no longer suffice, nor will piece meal solutions that address isolated aspects of the crisis. Offering a comprehensive approach that takes all factors into account, "The Seventh Decade" calls for a debate, national and global, on the paths away from what still remains the gravest, most urgent of all dangers to humanity.

At times of global crisis, Jonathan Schell's writings have always presented nuanced and influential alternatives to conventional thinking. The moral clarity of his reportage first entered the public consciousness with his dispatches for The New Yorker on Vietnam. These seminal articles became The Village of Ben Suc (1967), a searing account that predicted the failure of Pentagon politics. Over the subsequent decades, Schell's varied and consistently prescient articles have articulated the now commonly held notion that image has replaced substance in politics; provided (in Fate of the Earth) an apocalyptic vision of nuclear war that revitalized the disarmament movement; and more recently, charted the rise of "the other superpower"-the international peace movement that transcends country, class, and religion. As America finds itself at a crucial juncture both domestically and internationally, The Jonathan Schell Reader is vital reading for those who wish to better understand the history they have come from and the direction they should be heading toward. This book provides a landmark collection that spans the career of one of the leading thinkers and authors of our time.

Jonathan Schell's extraordinary on-the-scene writing about Vietnam has stood the test of time in our continuing attempt to understand how and why the United States went to war-and how and why it lost.
In "The Village of Ben Suc" written "with skill that many a veteran reporter will envy" ("New York Times"), Schell recounts how American forces destroyed a village caught up in the largest American military operation of the war-he flies into Ben Suc in the attack helicopters, follows the assault on the village, and describes the fate of the villages after they have been taken to refugee camps. In "Military Half," Schell describes the destruction of two entire provinces in South Vietnam by American bombing and ground operations-he flies in the air-control planes that guide the bombing and provides firsthand accounts of the runs and their results. In "Real War," Schell offers a personal look back at the war he reported decades before.
"The Real War" is without equal in re-creating the sights, the sounds, and the feel of Vietnam.
"If, years from now, Americans are willing to read any books about the war, let them be "The Village of Ben Suc" and "The Military Half" by Jonathan Schell. They tell everything." -Gloria Emerson

Among the voices that speak to us from Poland today, the most important may be that of Adam Michnik. Michnik now sits in a jail belonging to the totalitarian regime, yet his first concern--and herein lies one of the keys to his thinking, and one should add, to his character--is with the quality of his own conduct, which, together with teh conduct of other victims of the present situation, will, he is sure, one day set the tone for whatever political system follows the totalitarian debacle. His essays are the most valuable guide we have to the origins of the revolution, and, more particularly, to its innovative practices.