Gods of Metal

'Sitting not far below my feet, there was a thermonuclear warhead about twenty times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, all set and ready to go. The only sound was the sound of the wind.' 
 
Seventy years after the bombing of Hiroshima, Eric Schlosser's powerful, chilling piece of journalism exposes today's deadly nuclear age. Originally published in the New Yorker and now expanded, this terrifying true account of the 2012 break-in at a high-security weapons complex in Tennessee is a masterly work of reportage. 
 
'Schlosser's reportage is as good as it gets' GQ

Command and Control

So damnably readable. It drives the vision of a world trembling on the edge of a fatal precipice deep into your mind ... a piece of work of the deepest import, with the multilayered density of an ambitiously conceived novel

Do you really want to read about the thermonuclear warheads that are still aimed at the city where you live? Do you really need to know about the appalling security issues that have dogged nuclear weapons in the 70 years since their invention? Yes, you do. In Schlosser's hands it is a reading treat ... he's a natural genius

Part techno-thriller, part careful historical investigation ... beautifully written and impressively researched

The author of Fast Food Nation does for the American nuclear industry what he did for industrial food production

Eric Schlosser detonates a truth bomb in Command and Control

Deeply reported, deeply frightening . . . a techno-thriller of the first order

An excellent journalistic investigation of the efforts made since the first atomic bomb was exploded, outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, to put some kind of harness on nuclear weaponry. By a miracle of information management, Schlosser has synthesized a huge archive of material, including government reports, scientific papers, and a substantial historical and polemical literature on nukes, and transformed it into a crisp narrative covering more than fifty years of scientific and political change. And he has interwoven that narrative with a hair-raising, minute-by-minute account of an accident at a Titan II missile silo in Arkansas, in 1980, which he renders in the manner of a techno-thriller . . . Command and Control is how nonfiction should be written

A devastatingly lucid and detailed new history of nuclear weapons in the U.S. . . . fascinating

Command and Control ranks among the most nightmarish books written in recent years; and in that crowded company it bids fair to stand at the summit. It is the more horrific for being so incontrovertibly right and so damnably readable. Page after relentless page, it drives the vision of a world trembling on the edge of a fatal precipice deep into your reluctant mind . . . a work with the multilayered density of an ambitiously conceived novel . . . Schlosser has done what journalism does at its best when at full stretch: he has spent time - years - researching, interviewing, understanding and reflecting to give us a piece of work of the deepest import

Perilous and gripping . . . Schlosser skillfully weaves together an engrossing account of both the science and the politics of nuclear weapons safety . . . The story of the missile silo accident unfolds with the pacing, thrill and techno details of an episode of 24

Disquieting but riveting . . . fascinating . . . Schlosser's readers (and he deserves a great many) will be struck by how frequently the people he cites attribute the absence of accidental explosions and nuclear war to divine intervention or sheer luck rather than to human wisdom and skill. Whatever was responsible, we will clearly need many more of it in the years to come

Easily the most unsettling work of nonfiction I've ever read, Schlosser's six-year investigation of America's 'broken arrows' (nuclear weapons mishaps) is by and large historical-this stuff is top secret, after all-but the book is beyond relevant. It's critical reading in a nation with thousands of nukes still on hair-trigger alert . . . Command and Control reads like a character-driven thriller as Schlosser draws on his deep reporting, extensive interviews, and documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act to demonstrate how human error, computer glitches, dilution of authority, poor communications, occasional incompetence, and the routine hoarding of crucial information have nearly brought about our worst nightmare on numerous occasions

A powerful mix of history, politics, and technology,  told with impressive authority

Eric Schlosser brings the investigative rigour of his big hit Fast Food Nation to this overview of our global nuclear arsenal

Eric Schlosser is the author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness, as well as the co-author of a children's book, Chew on This. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, the Nation, and Vanity Fair, and he was an executive producer on the films Fast Food Nation and There Will Be Blood and a co-producer of the documentary Food Inc.

Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a missile silo in rural Arkansas, where a single crew struggled to prevent the explosion of the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States, with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort to ensure that nuclear weapons can't be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view.

Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food

Chew on This

A children's version of Eric Schlosser's bestselling FAST FOOD NATION which has sold over 350,000 copies.

Based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling Fast Food Nation, this is the shocking truth about the fast food industry - how it all began, its success, what fast food actually is, what goes on in the slaughterhouses, meatpacking factories and flavour labs, global advertising, merchandising in UK schools, mass production and the exploitation of young workers in the thousands of fast-food outlets throughout the world. It also takes a look at the effects on the environment and the highly topical issue of obesity. Meticulously researched, lively and informative, with first-hand accounts and quotes from children and young people, Eric Schlosser presents the facts in such a way that allows readers to make up their own minds about the incredible fast food phenomenon.

... and Other Tales from the American Underground

Reefer Madness

Sex, drugs and exploitation - whatever happened to the American dream?

From the author of Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser's Reefer Madness: and Other Tales from the American Underground follows the money to uncover made the country rich: porn, pot and exploitation. 
 
In three linked essays, Eric Schlosser uncovers how dirty dealings and secret vices are part of a global black market on which we all depend. 
 
Reefer Madness traces the history of the contemporary 'war on drugs' from its origins in Reagan's social conservatism through to its profound impact on civil society, creating a justice system that punishes marijuana offences more harshly than rape and murder. 
 
An Empire of the Obscene tells the story of Reuben Sturman, the billionaire 'Walt Disney of porn' who most effectively exploited economies of scale to create a business that now saturates America and the world with graphic sexual imagery. 
 
In the Strawberry Fields shows how public demand for a soft red fruit is causing mass migration from Central America and changing California's political economy forever. 
 
'An amazing secret history of America's favourite vices' 
 Independent 
 
'A shocking journey through the underside of the world's mightiest economy' 
 The Times 
 
'Schlosser tells us things we already suspect to be true, but don't dare think about' 
 Daily Telegraph 
 
'Superb ... mind-blowing ... quite simply the non-fiction book of the year' 
 The List 
 
Eric Schlosser is an author and investigative journalist based in New York. His first book, Fast Food Nation, was a major international bestseller. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone and the Guardian.

Eric Schlosser is an author and investigative journalist based in New York. His first book, FAST FOOD NATION, was a major international bestseller (Allen Lane, 2001). His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone and the Guardian.

Schlosser explores three prominent and little understood features of globalisation: drugs, pornography and migrant labour. REEFER MADNESS traces the history of the contemporary war on drugs from its origins in Reagan's social conservatism through toits profound impact on civil society. AN EMPIRE OF THE OBSCENE tells the story of Reuben Sturman,  who most effectively exploited economies of scale to create a business that now saturates America and the world with graphic sexual imagery. IN THE STRAWBERRY FIELDS shows how public demand for a soft red fruit is causing mass migration from Central America and changing California's political economy forever. Overall, the business of America is business. And much of it is underground.

Eric Schlosser

Eric Schlosser changed the way we ate

Intelligent, impeccably researched, terrifyingly detailed

Fast Food Nation lifted the polystyrene lid on the global fast food industry ... and sparked a storm

Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism

Schlosser's reportage is as good as it gets

Schlosser has a flair for dazzling scene-setting and an arsenal of startling facts

The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Twenty-five years ago, Fast Food Nation blew the lid off the industrial food system – exposing how it destroyed landscapes, widened the gap between rich and poor, fuelled an epidemic of obesity and spread its harms throughout the world. Eric Schlosser has visited the labs that create the taste of processed food, spoken to workers at meatpacking plants with horrific safety records, explored the tactics used to target ever younger customers with junk food and revealed the links between Hollywood and the fast food trade. Now in a new afterword, he describes what’s changed and what hasn’t over the past few decades, showing how the corporate forces he first criticized are even more ruthless today. Powerfully argued, explosive and terrifying, Fast Food Nation reveals the full cost of our appetite for instant gratification.

Eric Schlosser

Praise for Fast Food Nation

Eric Schlosser changed the way we ate

Intelligent, impeccably researched, terrifyingly detailed

Fast Food Nation lifted the polystyrene lid on the global fast food industry ... and sparked a storm

Eric Schlosser changed the way we ate

Intelligent, impeccably researched, terrifyingly detailed

Fast Food Nation lifted the polystyrene lid on the global fast food industry ... and sparked a storm

Eric Schlosser changed the way we ate

Intelligent, impeccably researched, terrifyingly detailed

Fast Food Nation lifted the polystyrene lid on the global fast food industry ... and sparked a storm

Books by Eric Schlosser

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