Garrett M. Graff Profile picture
Jun 18, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
NIGHTLY READING THREAD: Welcome to Edition #95 of #GMGReads! Every night through this weird (and sad) time, I've been tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
Continuing on with the Cold War theme for this week, I want to feature today my favorite books to understand nuclear history and nuclear weapons:
Before the official list, a quick plug for my publisher @AvidReaderPress's new book, by Chris Wallace, COUNTDOWN 1945, which I'm excited to read and examines the first days of the atomic bomb: bookshop.org/books/countdow…
1) Michael Dobbs' (@michaeldobbs) SIX MONTHS IN 1945 examines how the end of World War II transitioned into a new Cold War: bookshop.org/books/six-mont…
PS: I've already mentioned Richard Rhodes' masterful must-read MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB, but.... 
2) DARK SUN, his book about the invention of the hydrogen bomb, is equally fascinating and another tour du force of research and writing: bookshop.org/books/dark-sun…
3) Probably the two best books on the insanity of how nuclear weapons actually operate are Eric Schlosser's COMMAND AND CONTROL bookshop.org/books/command-… and David Hoffman's DEAD HAND: bookshop.org/books/the-dead…
4) Lynn Eden's WHOLE WORLD ON FIRE is a great study in the organizational blind spots that paralyzed and distorted so much of the atomic age—how did war planners fail for 50 years to consider that exploding nuclear weapons would start fires on the ground? magersandquinn.com/product_info?p…
5) Jonathan Schell's THE FATE OF THE EARTH in the 1980s was a key turning point in the public understanding of how bad nuclear war would be and helped usher in anti-nukes efforts worldwide: powells.com/book/the-fate-…
Those are tonight's #GMGReads. What are your favorite books about the Cold War? What are you reading right now? Share! #avidreadersunite

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Sep 11, 2023
THREAD: Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Throughout the day, I’ll be chronologically tweeting quotes from my book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: An Oral History of 9/11, following Americans as they experience that day.... amazon.com/Only-Plane-Sky…
Sunny Mindel, Communications Director for the Mayor of the City of New York, Rudy Giuliani: "On September 11th, I was facing what I thought would be an easy day."
.@katiecouric, anchor, @TODAYshow: It was the perfect fall day, a little touch of autumn in the air. It was one of those back-to-school September days, full of possibilities, and, in its own way, a new beginning.
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THREAD: The GOP knows it no longer can win free & fair national elections, and it’s doing everything it can to lock in its ability to rule as a minority.

It's a coordinated effort with 12 unique strategies I outline here in my new newsletter: .... doomsdayscenario.co/p/minority-rul…
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THREAD: I just published the first half of my inaugural newsletter essay, looking at America's failure of imagination and the GOP plot to enshrine minority rule in America. You can read the essay and sign up for the newsletter here: doomsdayscenario.co/p/the-coordina…
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Oct 14, 2022
THREAD: In @SenatorLeahy's new memoir, there's a wild story in it that I haven't ever seen before—a rare glimpse into the shadowy way that the intel agencies interact with Members of Congress. It feels ripped from a political thriller movie...: phoenixbooks.biz/book/978198215…
1) In the midst of the Iraq War debate, Leahy was one of the few Senators pushing back against the Bush admin race to war and the threats of WMDs. He'd been reading the classified intel that the Bush admin was providing to Congress and had real doubts that it justified war....
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Sep 9, 2022
THREAD: As we near Sunday's 21st anniversary of 9/11, I wanted to share the podcast I did last year about the lingering questions of that tragic day.

What happened on Sept 11 and how it changed our world remains the most important story of the modern age....
The history we've come to tell of that day is incomplete—and sometimes wrong. "Long Shadow" examines the enduring mysteries that still surround 9/11 and it's a different history than you likely remember—but one that will help you make sense of the world the attacks left behind.…
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Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lon…
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Aug 31, 2022
SHORT THREAD here on something I haven't seen someone else comment on: The strangest document in this photo, the orange bordered "Secret//SCI" one in the foreground. "Secret//SCI" is an incredibly rare marking....
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"SCI" material is usually so sensitive that it is almost always "Top Secret"....
2) It's impossible to know what type of document might be "Secret//SCI" but that highly unique combination of markings implies it's a piece of intelligence where someone was paying extremely special and precise attention to the information inside.
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