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 | | India's Nuclear Bomb: The Impact on Global Proliferation (Philip E. Lilienthal Book) by George Perkovich ISBN-10: 0520217721 ISBN-10: 0-520-21772-1 ISBN-13: 9780520217720 ISBN-13: 978-0-520-21772-0 Hardcover 1999-11 University of California Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Amazon.com Nobody expected India--the country that produced pacifist leader Mahatma Gandhi--to go nuclear so soon or so suddenly. But that's what it did in May 1998, detonating five nuclear weapons, to the world's astonishment. George Perkovich offers a comprehensive survey of how India got the bomb, starting with early technical efforts dating back 50 years and concluding with a full treatment of exactly what India did in the Rajasthan desert and why. He challenges the conventional wisdom holding that countries pursue nuclear power mainly for security reasons. Perkovich says the motives, at least in India's case (and, he believes, in the case of other developing countries), were much more complex. An overwhelming desire for global recognition and national pride trumped everything else. He suggests the United States might have done more to head off recent events had the nation not lacked a coherent policy toward South Asia thanks to cold-war politics. India's rivalry with Pakistan didn't help, either; it's extremely difficult to be on very good terms with both nations at once. The footnotes are extensive and the details sometimes can seem overwhelming, but the book's topic may be one of the most important issues of the 21st century. In short, George Perkovich and India's Nuclear Bomb are to India what Richard Rhodes and The Making of the Atomic Bomb are to the United States. --John J. Miller | ||
Book Description In May 1998, India shocked the world--and many of its own citizens--by detonating five nuclear weapons in the Rajasthan desert. Why did India bid for nuclear weapon status at a time when 149 nations had signed a ban on nuclear testing? What drove India's new Hindu nationalist government to depart from decades of nuclear restraint, a control that no other nation with similar capacities had displayed? How has U.S. nonproliferation policy affected India's decision making? India's Nuclear Bomb is the definitive, comprehensive history of how the world's largest democracy, has grappled with the twin desires to have and to renounce the bomb. Each chapter contains significant historical revelations drawn from scores of interviews with India's key scientists, military leaders, diplomats and politicians, and from declassified U.S. government documents and interviews with U.S. officials. Perkovich teases out the cultural and ethical concerns and vestiges of colonialism that underlie India's seemingly paradoxical stance. India's nuclear history challenges leading theories of why nations pursue and hang onto nuclear weapons, raising important questions for international relations theory and security studies. So, too, the blasts in Rajasthan have shaken the foundations of the international nonproliferation system. With the end of the Cold War and an even more chaotic international scene, Perkovich's analysis of an alternative model is timely, sobering, and vital. | ||
Reviews | ||
Superb Less to do with the bomb per se, but a scholarly history of the Indian nuclear program. This is a work that will be quoted again and again. | ||
An excellent insightful book As an Indian immensely proud of his country's accomplishments and having had to enter multiple debates with other non-Indians in May 1998, I gained a great amount from the book. It is immaculately researched and it seems that Perkovich has left no stone unturned. It goes into such depth and understanding of the Indian polity's psyche as previously unseen from a non-Indian author. Perkovich is not merely narrating a set of events which led to the testing but defending a theory that goes against current understandings of international relations and nuclear non-profileration by setting India as an example. I enjoyed every chapter of the book and hope that current policy makers in the field learn from it. A must read for every Indian interested it their country's policies and others making policy for the rest of the world. | ||
Good Story It is time that India and Pakistan get the respect they deserve as nuclear powers. Why is it that France, Germany, Israel, the U.S., Russia, and South Africa (now supposedly non-nuclear) have been able to garner the respect that China, India and Pakistan are alluded by? Is it becuase they are not white Europeans? Nontheless, a well researched book. | ||
Monumental effort by the author This is easily one of the best books I have read about my own country. Very informative. Note to editorial Reviewers: India entered the nuclear club in May 1974 and not in May 1998 as suggested by some of your reviews. Some highlights of the book. * The term nuclear "haves" and "have-nots" was coined by Homi Bhabha initially and used by others and till date has been central to putting forth our country's opposition to NPT and CTBT. * University of Chicago's late Prof. Chandrasekhar's refusal to head the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) after the death of patriot Dr. Homi Bhabha. * One of my disappointment is the author's avoidance in the discussion of the cause of the death of Dr. Homi Bhabha, even though such an incident is beyond the scope of this book. Since Bhabha provided the impetus and leadership during the nuclear program's infancy, I expected the author to throw some light on this issue. * Vikram Sarabhai's hatred for Nuclear tests is news, especially since he was heading the Atomic Energy commision. As a spaceman it is surprising that he headed the organization in the first place. * Indira Gandhi's refusal to allow more nuclear tests after 1974 stemmed from her abhorence for anything nuclear after her post-Pokhran I experiences. This is contrary to the popular belief - international pressure. * Most sections of the book has an objective view of the Indian nuclear scenario except the last few chapters where the author seems to bend towards India signing the CTBT and the NPT. Or atleast implying that India's moral stand on nuclear issue was defeated after the May 98 tests. * BJP (and its predecessor Jana Sangh) has been the only political party to openly campaign for Nuclear power. | ||
Meticulous research, objective analysis George Perkovich has produced a seminal work on India's nuclear weapons program. He analyzes the political, economic, security issues that have contributed to India's decision-making regarding the bomb. George has correctly identified India as being caught in a dilemma for a long time over nuclear weapons testing. India also provides the only example of a nuclear weapons program that was openly debated in a democratic society. This debate (which ranked often very low on the priorities of successive prime ministers who correctly placed socio-economic development as a higher priority) has led to India shifting its position over time -- one from being the first proponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to opposing it due to is discriminatory nature today. It describes how India's opposition to nuclear weapons in the '50s which was perceived as being moralizing in the West, has now changed to embrace weapons since the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty permanently endorsed the nuclear weapons status of the five declared nuclear powers without any comprehensive, binding time-table for destroying all nuclear weapons -- a position that India objects to as being discriminatory. A must-read for anyone interested in nuclear weapons proliferation and arms control negotiations today. | ||