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Thermonuclear Monarchy. Choosing Between Democracy And Doom

Author: Elaine Scarry

W. W. Norton, New York and London, 2014, pp. 582

Social theorist Elaine Scarry recalls the threats to use nuclear weapons by successive US presidents and argues that the power of one leader to obliterate millions people with a nuclear weapon deeply violates the constitutional rights of the citizens in the US. She also argues that it undermines the social contract and is fundamentally at odds with the deliberative principle of democracy. She explores political and constitutional changes that she believes could make it possible to start dismantling the nuclear arsenals.