
Countdown
The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $13.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Teri Schnaubelt
-
By:
-
Sarah Scoles
About this listen
Nuclear weapons are, today, as important as they were during the Cold War, and some experts say we could be as close to a nuclear catastrophe now as we were at the height of that conflict. Despite that, conversations about these bombs generally often happen in past tense.
In Countdown, science journalist Sarah Scoles uncovers a different atomic reality: the nuclear age's present. Drawing from years of on-the-ground reporting at the nation's nuclear weapons labs, Scoles interrogates the idea that having nuclear weapons keeps us safe, deterring attacks and preventing radioactive warfare. She deftly assesses the existing nuclear apparatus in the United States, taking listeners beyond the news headlines and policy-speak to reveal the state of nuclear-weapons technology, as well as how people currently working within the United States nuclear weapons complex have come to think about these bombs and the idea that someone, someday, might use them.
Through a sharp, surprising, and undoubtedly urgent narrative, Scoles brings us out of the Cold War and into the twenty-first century, opening listeners' eyes to the true nature of nuclear weapons and their caretakers while also giving us the context necessary to understand the consequences of their existence, for worse and for better, for now and for the future.
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
American Heretics
- Religous Adversaries to Liberal Order
- By: Jerome E. Copulsky
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The conversation about the proper role of religion in American public life often revolves around what kind of polity the Founders of the United States envisioned. In this book, Jerome E. Copulsky complicates this ongoing public argument by examining a collection of thinkers who, on religious grounds, considered the nation's political ideas illegitimate, its institutions flawed, and its church-state arrangement defective.
-
-
Lots of new-to-me information
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 04-07-25
-
A Perfect Frenzy
- A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution
- By: Andrew Lawler
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the American Revolution broke out in New England in the spring of 1775, dramatic events unfolded in Virginia that proved every bit as decisive as the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill in uniting the colonies against Britain. Chronicling these stunning and widely overlooked events in full for the first time, A Perfect Frenzy offers a striking new perspective on the American Revolution that reorients our understanding of its causes, highlights the radically different motivations between patriots in the North and South, and reveals the seeds of the nation’s racial divide.
-
-
Evan's Review
- By Evan on 04-05-25
By: Andrew Lawler
-
In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl
- Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico's Ancient Civilizations
- By: Merilee Grindle
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where do human societies come from? The drive to answer this question took on a new urgency in the nineteenth century, when a generation of archaeologists began to look beyond the bible for the origins of different cultures and civilizations. Zelia Nuttall threw herself into the study of Aztec customs and cosmology, eager to use the tools of the emerging science of anthropology to prove that modern Mexico was built over the ruins of ancient civilizations.
By: Merilee Grindle
-
The Honey Trap
- How the Good Intentions of Urban Beekeepers Risk Ecological Disaster
- By: Dana L. Church
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The last decade has seen an explosion of urban beekeeping in the US, Canada, and Europe, a well-intentioned response to perceived threats to the global honey bee population. Many thousands of people have taken up this seemingly environmentally friendly hobby, tending backyard and rooftop hives (or paying a company to do so) and encouraging honey bees to make honey and pollinate flowers. What could be wrong with that? Quite a lot, in fact. In The Honey Trap, scientist and author Dana Church demonstrates that despite reports to the contrary, honey bees are nowhere near extinction.
By: Dana L. Church
-
Brokers of Deceit
- How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
- By: Rashid Khalidi
- Narrated by: Curtis Michael Holland
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States' involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine.
-
-
Interesting take on history
- By Nancy on 02-17-25
By: Rashid Khalidi
-
Inevitable
- Inside the Messy, Unstoppable Transition to Electric Vehicles
- By: Mike Colias
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The question is no longer if electric vehicles will happen, or even when they'll happen, but how. Veteran automotive reporter Mike Colias takes you inside the transformation in this thoroughly reported profile of the hard pivot in the car business, a $2 trillion industry undergoing the biggest change in its 120-year history—a change that is already sending ripples across the entire global economy.
-
-
Best Book on EVs - Fun and Authoritative
- By LD on 04-16-25
By: Mike Colias
-
American Heretics
- Religous Adversaries to Liberal Order
- By: Jerome E. Copulsky
- Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
- Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The conversation about the proper role of religion in American public life often revolves around what kind of polity the Founders of the United States envisioned. In this book, Jerome E. Copulsky complicates this ongoing public argument by examining a collection of thinkers who, on religious grounds, considered the nation's political ideas illegitimate, its institutions flawed, and its church-state arrangement defective.
-
-
Lots of new-to-me information
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 04-07-25
-
A Perfect Frenzy
- A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis That Spurred the American Revolution
- By: Andrew Lawler
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 17 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the American Revolution broke out in New England in the spring of 1775, dramatic events unfolded in Virginia that proved every bit as decisive as the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill in uniting the colonies against Britain. Chronicling these stunning and widely overlooked events in full for the first time, A Perfect Frenzy offers a striking new perspective on the American Revolution that reorients our understanding of its causes, highlights the radically different motivations between patriots in the North and South, and reveals the seeds of the nation’s racial divide.
-
-
Evan's Review
- By Evan on 04-05-25
By: Andrew Lawler
-
In the Shadow of Quetzalcoatl
- Zelia Nuttall and the Search for Mexico's Ancient Civilizations
- By: Merilee Grindle
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Where do human societies come from? The drive to answer this question took on a new urgency in the nineteenth century, when a generation of archaeologists began to look beyond the bible for the origins of different cultures and civilizations. Zelia Nuttall threw herself into the study of Aztec customs and cosmology, eager to use the tools of the emerging science of anthropology to prove that modern Mexico was built over the ruins of ancient civilizations.
By: Merilee Grindle
-
The Honey Trap
- How the Good Intentions of Urban Beekeepers Risk Ecological Disaster
- By: Dana L. Church
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The last decade has seen an explosion of urban beekeeping in the US, Canada, and Europe, a well-intentioned response to perceived threats to the global honey bee population. Many thousands of people have taken up this seemingly environmentally friendly hobby, tending backyard and rooftop hives (or paying a company to do so) and encouraging honey bees to make honey and pollinate flowers. What could be wrong with that? Quite a lot, in fact. In The Honey Trap, scientist and author Dana Church demonstrates that despite reports to the contrary, honey bees are nowhere near extinction.
By: Dana L. Church
-
Brokers of Deceit
- How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East
- By: Rashid Khalidi
- Narrated by: Curtis Michael Holland
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than seven decades the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people has raged on with no end in sight, and for much of that time, the United States has been involved as a mediator in the conflict. Khalidi closely analyzes three historical moments that illuminate how the United States' involvement has, in fact, thwarted progress toward peace between Israel and Palestine.
-
-
Interesting take on history
- By Nancy on 02-17-25
By: Rashid Khalidi
-
Inevitable
- Inside the Messy, Unstoppable Transition to Electric Vehicles
- By: Mike Colias
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The question is no longer if electric vehicles will happen, or even when they'll happen, but how. Veteran automotive reporter Mike Colias takes you inside the transformation in this thoroughly reported profile of the hard pivot in the car business, a $2 trillion industry undergoing the biggest change in its 120-year history—a change that is already sending ripples across the entire global economy.
-
-
Best Book on EVs - Fun and Authoritative
- By LD on 04-16-25
By: Mike Colias
-
The Eurasian Century
- Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century
- By: Hal Brands
- Narrated by: Tim Fannon
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hal Brands argues that a better understanding of Eurasia's strategic geography can illuminate the contours of rivalry and conflict in today's world. The Eurasian Century explains how revolutions in technology and warfare, and the rise of toxic ideologies of conquest, made Eurasia the center of twentieth-century geopolitics—with pressing implications for the struggles that will define the twenty-first.
-
-
Worth the read.
- By Chip Eckert on 02-24-25
By: Hal Brands
-
Technology Is Dead
- The Path to a More Human Future
- By: Christopher Colbert
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did we end up here, masters of scientific insight, purveyors of ever more powerful technologies, astride the burning planet that created us, and now responsible for cleaning up the mess and determining the future direction of all of life? And what do we do about it? Technology is Dead is a book that attempts to answer both of those questions. It is a book of both challenge and hope, written for those who are able or willing to lead us out of our global predicament.
-
Cool
- How Air Conditioning Changed Everything
- By: Salvatore Basile
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The air conditioner is often hailed as one of the modern world's greatest inventions—yet nearly as often blamed for global disaster. It has changed everything from architecture to people's food habits; saved countless lives, and caused countless deaths. First appearing in 1902, when Willis Carrier, an engineer barely out of college, developed the "Apparatus for Treating Air," everyone assumed it would instantly change the world. But the story of air conditioning and its rise to ubiquity is far from simple.
By: Salvatore Basile
-
Random Acts of Automation
- How to Fight Back When Automation Threatens Your Work, Your Life, and Everything You Do
- By: Craig LeClair
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Random Acts of Automation dives deep into the hidden consequences of our rapid automation, examining the forces that will reshape the current workforce. This book focuses on real people—fast-food workers, warehouse staff, customer service agents, even lawyers and tech professionals—all facing the impact of automation. In its chapters, you will find practical solutions to your workplace concerns about AI. This isn't just about understanding your current job; it's about seeing where automation will take you and how you can thrive.
By: Craig LeClair
-
Employment Is Dead
- How Disruptive Technologies Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work
- By: Deborah Perry Piscione, Josh Drean
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Business is on the cusp of an inevitable and profound transformation. The tools of tomorrow will amplify human potential, from collaborating in virtual spaces through digital avatars, to managing transactions transparently on the blockchain. Those who embrace these technologies—and the manner in which people want to work—will unleash unprecedented levels of productivity and innovation. Conversely, those who remain tethered to outdated work patterns risk losing out on the best talent, and even becoming obsolete.
-
-
AI is Rapidly Changing Today’s Workforce
- By Hayley on 02-18-25
By: Deborah Perry Piscione, and others
-
The Great Siege of Malta
- By: Marcus Bull
- Narrated by: Justin Avoth
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This superb account of the siege emphasises the crucial importance of the siege while at the same time putting it in a far wider context. While seen as a climactic battle between the West and the East, it was also much more nuanced than that – both sides had many other interests and priorities beyond Malta. Suleiman the Magnificent had conquered and subsumed regions from Hungary to the Persian Gulf; Philip II was building an empire in America and Asia.
By: Marcus Bull
-
The Dark Path
- The Structure of War and the Rise of the West
- By: Williamson Murray
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 18 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although the fundamental nature of war has not altered over the centuries, constant change, innovation, and adaptation have repeatedly reshaped how wars are fought in the West. Revolutions in military practice cannot be separated from larger social developments in areas like logistics, finance and economics, and the culture of military organizations.
-
Dark Laboratory
- On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis
- By: Tao Leigh Goffe
- Narrated by: Tao Leigh Goffe
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1492, Christopher Columbus arrived on the Caribbean Island of Guanahaní to find an Edenic scene that was soon mythologized. But behind the myth of paradise, the Caribbean and its people would come to pay the price of relentless Western exploitation and abuse. In Dark Laboratory, Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe embarks on a historical journey to chart the forces that have shaped these islands: the legacy of slavery, indentured labor, and the forced toil of Chinese and enslaved Black people who mined the islands’ bounty for the benefit of European powers.
By: Tao Leigh Goffe
-
Everything Must Go
- The Stories We Tell About the End of the World
- By: Dorian Lynskey
- Narrated by: Dorian Lynskey
- Length: 14 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Dorian Lynskey writes, “People have been contemplating the end of the world for millennia.” In this immersive and compelling cultural history, Lynskey reveals how religious prophecies of the apocalypse were secularized in the early 19th century by Lord Byron and Mary Shelley in a time of dramatic social upheaval and temporary climate change, inciting a long tradition of visions of the end without gods.
-
-
A book that I needed
- By TJ Schreiber on 02-19-25
By: Dorian Lynskey
-
Waste Land
- A World in Permanent Crisis
- By: Robert D. Kaplan
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are entering a new era of global cataclysm in which the world faces a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, the end of both monarchy and empire, and countless other dangers. In Waste Land, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and author of more than twenty books on world affairs, incisively explains how we got here and where we are going.
-
-
Climate / Population Alarmism in a Mask
- By ElovesK on 02-07-25
By: Robert D. Kaplan
-
Quantum Physics Unplugged
- A Beginner's Guide to Understanding the Universe's Greatest Mysteries - Master the Basics Through Clear Language, Fun Examples, and Zero Complex Math
- By: House of Abundance Publications
- Narrated by: Jesse Burke
- Length: 2 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Journey into quantum physics - without the mathematical maze! Ever wonder how particles can exist in two places at once or why Einstein called quantum entanglement "spooky action at distance"? Quantum Physics Unplugged transforms these mind-bending concepts into clear, engaging insights that anyone can grasp.
-
-
Physics less complicated
- By Diana Freel on 02-16-25
-
The Killing Fields of East New York
- The First Subprime Mortgage Scandal, a White-Collar Crime Spree, and the Collapse of an American Neighborhood
- By: Stacy Horn
- Narrated by: EJ Lavery
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On a warm summer evening in 1991, seventeen-year-old Julia Parker was murdered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. An area known for an exorbitant level of violence and crime, East New York had come to be known as the Killing Fields. In the six months after Julia Parker’s death, 62 more people were murdered in the same area. In the early 1990s, murder rates in the neighborhood climbed to the highest in NYPD history. East New York was dying. But how did this once thriving, diverse, family neighborhood fall into such ruin?
-
-
Clear description of a muddy subject
- By Amy D. on 02-24-25
By: Stacy Horn
What listeners say about Countdown
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 02-02-25
It was just not interesting.
I tried to get into it. It just was not interesting even though I really generally like the topic.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!