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| View Larger Image | Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race | Paperbackby Simon & Schuster UK (Publisher)
| 9 New starting at: | $13.22 |
| | 3 Used starting at: | $11.73 |
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| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Simon & Schuster UK | | Page Count: | 352 Pages | | Sales Rank: | 3,302,875rd |
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CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 21 reviews)
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Quality Problem by Mr. John H. Joosten (Perth, Australia)  4 Stars
December 17, 2009
When I received this book, I noticed that
(a) it was printed on rather poor quality paper - just a grade above newsprint, and
(b) that the outer edges of the pages had not been properly trimmed - top and bottom edges were fine.
The book itself is proving to be very enjoyable. It is just that, having purchased several books over the past few years, I had expected the same first-class production quality.
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I don't think von Clausewitz would be proud. by Roger 4 Stars
December 01, 2009
After reading this book I came away w/an armchair tactician's understanding of not the Cold War, but the arms race. The two are related and this book mostly deals with the former.
A lot of folks seem upset at this book. From my reading there are three red flags that might say you should not read this book.
1) You think America did no wrong in starting the Arms Race.
2) You are ad admirer of Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz or Ronald Regan or any other, as I paraphrase, "Hawk who had never seen a battle"
3) You get bored reading long excerpts from transcripts of talks between politicians.
My number one take away is a repeat of a quote I can't find the attribution of right now. Here it is as I remember it. "Armies are always ready to fight their previous war". The Arms Race happened in part by two armies not wanting to get stuck flat footed replaying WWII with nuclear weapons.
Not that they thought of that way at the time. I have not read any of his other books so I can't say one way or the other how it compares.
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Who are these Soviets of whom Rhodes writes? by J. Green (Los Angeles, California)  2 Stars
July 17, 2009
At turns both fascinating and mind-numbingly dull. Rhodes describes the ascent of Gorbachev, including the Stalin purges that took his grandfather and the pathetic living conditions of the people, but otherwise portrays Soviet leaders as simple and honest guys just trying to do their jobs. By contrast, American leaders are portrayed as ideological, paranoid, and manipulative, and American presidents as too bored by discussions of arms control treaties to even look at them. According to Rhodes, all of this American paranoia was entirely without cause; any change in Soviet missiles was simply routine maintenance or small and simple upgrades, whereas American modifications were threatening provocations, continually upping the ante. He repeatedly says that American arms far outnumbered the Soviets by several magnitudes. All of this made for a bunch of nervous and jittery Soviet leaders - whose rhetoric was never fiery in contrast to American leaders - who lost a lot of sleep at night worrying and were forced into an arms race instead of just being able to feed their people and put a man on the moon. What? That doesn't sound like the USSR you thought you knew? Me neither.
I won't dispute that the number of nuclear missiles pointed at each other wasn't ridiculous. I won't dispute that a LOT of money and resources was wasted. I won't even dispute that American politicians are generally a sleazy lot. But I do dispute his characterizations of the Soviet leaders as peaceful and merely reacting to threats and provocations by the Americans.
A few other points Rhodes makes which I dispute:
- He blames the Reagan Administration for the tragedy when the Soviets shot down a Korean air liner with 260 passengers!
- He describes the American bombers in the 50s as a superior delivery system to that of the Soviets missiles, ignoring the fact that nuclear missiles would arrive in a matter of minutes whereas bombers would take hours to deliver their payload (never mind that bombers could be shot down).
- Gorbachev comes off as a peaceful genius with an agricultural background, whereas Reagan is a dim-witted religious fanatic. He mocks Reagan's surprise that the Soviets thought his rhetoric was serious (while calling Soviet leaders "candid"), and his hopes for SDI. He says Reagan did nothing to contribute to the fall of the Soviet Union - it was either happening on it's own or because of prior US persecution.
- He infers that Soviet intervention in countries that fell to communism was merely aiding well-meaning and like-minded people, whereas Americans were being "interventionist."
- Many of his quotes and citations are from people who were low level or outsiders, including many journalists and even an American defector. Quotes are selective and do not give a balanced perspective.
I found his discussion at the beginning of Soviet history fascinating. But his discussions of the United States were so one-sided and seemingly agenda driven as to ruin all credibility. He continually vilifies everything the Americans did, while painting the Soviets as unwillingly caught up in the arms race. I've heard great things about prior books by Rhodes, but this one has so soured me that I'm not sure I'll bother. I finally gave up about 3/4 through - what a waste of time. (I listened to the audiobook and the reader was fine, although he read with such a monotone voice that it certainly didn't help to make the material any more interesting).
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Interesting, pleasantly not what I expected by Joe (In orbit)  3 Stars
January 11, 2009
Enjoyable, below his normal average Rhodes book. I thoroughly enjoyed the first half which covered many of the Russian fumblings in the early nuclear era (the US had a couple notable problems though too). Toward the end it moved into a 'he said, she said' political record, mostly between Reagan and Gorbachev, which drones on for a couple hundred of pages. Some of this second half droning is interesting, but most of it is pretty dry. All in all, worth your time, but a little overboard with the details that could have more easily been pieced together in the readers mind, instead of written on the page.
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Dry, tedious, and disappointing by G. Hunter 2 Stars
January 04, 2009
Rhode's "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" was a riveting page-turner, the kind of read I missed sleep over because I couldn't put it down. Likewise, "Dark Sun..." was as intense as any Clancy techno-thriller. By contrast, "Arsenals of Folly" was about like reading the dictionary. In all fairness, there were a few bright spots that read more like the encyclopedia. Unfortunately, there were also vast stretches of mind-numbing minutia that were more like reading the phone book. I gutted it out by reading a few pages at bedtime--my nightly dose of Castor oil. Surrender to the sandman came as quickly as an attack of narcolepsy, so progress was excruciatingly slow. I've never been so pleased to reach the end of a book. I'm glad I read it. After all, Cold War nuclear arms control is serious, important stuff. The research and analysis were impeccable, as usual, and I am now far, far better informed. But after devouring Rhode's two earlier works of nuclear history, a dry, tedious catalog of Soviet/US arms control talks is not what I expected or wanted. I give it two stars and five yawns.
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