| The Evolution of Arms Control: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age Contributor(s): Burns, Richard Dean (Author) |
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ISBN: 1442223790 ISBN-13: 9781442223790 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers OUR PRICE: $51.48 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2013 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | International Relations - Arms Control - Political Science | History & Theory - General - Political Science | International Relations - Diplomacy |
| Dewey: 327.174 |
| Series: Weapons of Mass Destruction |
| Physical Information: 0.81" H x 5.98" W x 8.94" (0.88 lbs) 251 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Drawing on his knowledge of the comparative history of warfare and arms control across preliterate, ancient, medieval, and modern polities, Richard Dean Burns focuses longitudinally on such perennial arms control issues as negotiation, verification, and compliance. Although he does not, for example, allege that war elephants and nuclear weapons are of equal destructive potential, he does discern instructive similarities between Carthage in 202 BCE and Iraq in 1991 AD. Arms control and disarmament measures have been pursued and adopted throughout the history and prehistory of human warfare: sometimes as protocols recognizing evolving humanitarian taboos; sometimes as terms imposed by the victors on the vanquished; and sometimes as accords negotiated between rivals fearful of mutual destruction. Arms control measures ramped up in significance and urgency at the dawn of the 20th century by the introduction of rapid-fire weapons, aircraft, chemical agents, and submarines, and again at mid-century with the advent of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological-with sophisticated delivery systems. As Burns makes clear, the enormous increase in destructive potential brought about by thermonuclear weaponry essentially changed the nature of war and, therefore, of arms control. |
Contributor Bio(s): Burns, Richard Dean: - Richard Dean Burns, Professor Emeritus, California State University, Los Angeles, is an internationally recognized scholar who designed and edited the three-volume Encyclopedia of Arms Control and Disarmament (Scribners, 1993) that received national awards. Earlier, he co-authored Disarmament in Perspective, 1919-1913, 4 vols. (U.S. Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, 1968) and compiled Arms Control & Disarmament: A Bibliography (ABC-Clio, 1977) the first such modern bibliography. He authored Evolution of Arms Control: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age (Praeger, 2009) and The Missile Defense Systems of George W. Bush (Praeger, 2010). And co-authored Reagan, Bush, Gorbachev: Revisiting the end of the Cold War (Praeger, 2008), followed by America and the Cold War, 1941-1991: A Realist Interpretation, 2 vols. (Praeger, 2010). |