Featuring 170 striking photographs, Abandoned Cold War Places is a fascinating visual history of the relics left behind by both sides from the late 1940s to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“A vivid reminder of the ever-present threat of a global apocalypse that formed the backdrop to the Cold War. This is an excellent book.” —History of War Medieval castles, the defensive systems of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the trenches and bunkers of the First World War, the great citadels of the Second World War—all these have been described in depth. But the fortifications of the Cold War—the hidden forts of the nuclear age—have not been catalogued and studied in the same way. Paul Ozorak’s Underground Structures of the Cold War: The World Below fills the gap. After the devastation caused by the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the outbreak of the Cold War, all over the world shelters were constructed deep underground for civilians, government leaders and the military. Wartime structures were taken over and adapted and thousands of men went to work drilling new tunnels and constructing bunkers of every possible size. At the height of the Cold War, in some countries an industry of bunker-makers profited from the public’s fear of annihilation. Paul Ozorak describes when and where these bunkers were built, and records what has become of them. He explains how they would have been used if a nuclear war had broken out, and in the case of weapons bases, he shows how these weapons would have been deployed. His account covers every sort of facility—public shelters, missile sites, command and communication centers, storage depots, hospitals. A surprising amount of information has appeared in the media about these places since the end of the Cold War, and Paul Ozorak’s book takes full advantage of it.

Now a 6-part mini-series called Why the Rest of Us Die airing on VICE TV! The shocking truth about the government’s secret plans to survive a catastrophic attack on US soil—even if the rest of us die—is “a frightening eye-opener” (Kirkus Reviews) that spans the dawn of the nuclear age to today, and "contains everything one could possibly want to know" (The Wall Street Journal). Every day in Washington, DC, the blue-and-gold first Helicopter Squadron, codenamed “MUSSEL,” flies over the Potomac River. As obvious as the Presidential motorcade, most people assume the squadron is a travel perk for VIPs. They’re only half right: while the helicopters do provide transport, the unit exists to evacuate high-ranking officials in the event of a terrorist or nuclear attack on the capital. In the event of an attack, select officials would be whisked by helicopters to a ring of secret bunkers around Washington, even as ordinary citizens were left to fend for themselves. “In exploring the incredible lengths (and depths) that successive administrations have gone to in planning for the aftermath of a nuclear assault, Graff deftly weaves a tale of secrecy and paranoia” (The New York Times Book Review) with details "that read like they've been ripped from the pages of a pulp spy novel" (Vice). For more than sixty years, the US government has been developing secret Doomsday strategies to protect itself, and the multibillion-dollar Continuity of Government (COG) program takes numerous forms—from its potential to evacuate the Liberty Bell from Philadelphia to the plans to launch nuclear missiles from a Boeing-747 jet flying high over Nebraska. Garrett M. Graff sheds light on the inner workings of the 650-acre compound, called Raven Rock, just miles from Camp David, as well as dozens of other bunkers the government built for its top leaders during the Cold War, from the White House lawn to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado to Palm Beach, Florida, and the secret plans that would have kicked in after a Cold War nuclear attack to round up foreigners and dissidents and nationalize industries. Equal parts a presidential, military, and cultural history, Raven Rock tracks the evolution of the government plan and the threats of global war from the dawn of the nuclear era through the War on Terror.

“Draws on previously classified documents to reveal the sums spent on underground shelters for British and American leaders during the Cold War.” —Publishers Weekly Cold War Secret Nuclear Bunkers tells the previously undisclosed story of the secret defence structures built by the West during the Cold War years. Author Nick McCamley reveals the various bunkers built for the U.S. Administration, including the Raven Rock alternate war headquarters (the Pentagon’s wartime hideout), the Greenbrier bunker for the Senate and House of Representatives, and the Mount Weather central government headquarter, as well as developments in Canadas and extensive coverage of the UK, including the London bunkers and Regional War rooms built in the 1950s to protect against Soviet threat. The book examines the provision, (or more accurately, lack of provision), of shelter space for the general population, comparing the situation in the USA and the UK with some other European countries and with the Soviet Union. McCamley also provides in fascinating detail the vast umbrella of radar stations that spanned the North American continent and the north Atlantic from the Aleutian Islands through Canada to the North Yorkshire moors, all centered upon an enormous secret control center buried hundreds of feet below Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. This is complemented in the United Kingdom with a chain of secret radars codenamed ‘Rotor’ built in the early 1950’s, and eight huge, inland sector control centers, built over 100’ underground at enormous cost. Also included is the UK Warning and Monitoring Organization with its underground bunkers and observation posts, as well as the little known bunkers built by the various local authorities and public utilities.

For almost five decades, the United Kingdom made plans for a nuclear attack that never came. To help their citizens, civil servants, and armed forces prepare, those in power designed and published a variety of booklets, posters, and how-to guides. Most infamous among these was the Protect and Survive campaign, but just as fascinating are lesser-known materials prepared for the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation and the Royal Observer Corps, many of which are reproduced here for the first time. From terrifying images issued by central government, to local councils' sometimes amateurish survival guides, 'Nuclear War in the UK' is a look at the way Britain's authorities reacted to the Soviet nuclear threat.

Underground facilities are used extensively by many nations to conceal and protect strategic military functions and weapons' stockpiles. Because of their depth and hardened status, however, many of these strategic hard and deeply buried targets could only be put at risk by conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapons (EPW). Recently, an engineering feasibility study, the robust nuclear earth penetrator program, was started by DOE and DOD to determine if a more effective EPW could be designed using major components of existing nuclear weapons. This activity has created some controversy about, among other things, the level of collateral damage that would ensue if such a weapon were used. To help clarify this issue, the Congress, in P.L. 107-314, directed the Secretary of Defense to request from the NRC a study of the anticipated health and environmental effects of nuclear earth-penetrators and other weapons and the effect of both conventional and nuclear weapons against the storage of biological and chemical weapons. This report provides the results of those analyses. Based on detailed numerical calculations, the report presents a series of findings comparing the effectiveness and expected collateral damage of nuclear EPW and surface nuclear weapons under a variety of conditions.

History of the vast underground arsenals, factories and bunkers built by the British government during WWII and the new uses found for them.

The Cold War was one of the twentieth century's defining events, with long-lasting political, social, and material implications. It created a global landscape of culturally and politically significant artifacts and sites that are critical to understanding and preserving the history of that conflict. The stories of these artifacts and sites remain mostly untold, however, because so many of the facilities operated in secret. In this volume, Todd Hanson examines the Cold War's secret sites through three theoretical frameworks: conflict archaeology, the archaeology of the recent past, and the archaeology of science. He presents case studies of investigations conducted at some famous--and some not so famous--historic sites that were pivotal to the conflict, including Bikini Atoll, the Nevada Test Site, and the Cuban sites of the Soviet Missile Crisis. Hanson illustrates how, by examining nuclear weapons testing sites, missile silos, peace camps, fallout shelters, and more, archaeology can help strip away the Cold War's myths, secrets, and political rhetoric in order to better understand the conflict's formative role in the making of the contemporary American landscape. Addressing modern ramifications of the Cold War, Hanson also looks at the preservation of atomic heritage sites, the phenomenon of atomic tourism, and the struggles of America's atomic veterans. As the Cold War retreats into the annals of history, and its monuments fade away, so too do the opportunities to gain deeper insight into the successes--and the failures--of the era. Hanson suggests topics for future archaeological research and reflects on the implications of failing to study or preserve North America's Cold War heritage. A volume in the series the American Experience in Archaeological Perspective, edited by Michael S. Nassaney

Jake McGowan-Lowe is a boy with a very unusual hobby. Since the age of 7, he has been photographing and blogging about his incredible finds and now has a worldwide following, including 100,000 visitors from the US and Canada. Follow Jake as he explores the animal world through this new 64-page book. He takes you on a world wide journey of his own collection, and introduces you to other amazing animals from the four corners of the globe. Find out what a cow's tooth, a rabbit's rib and a duck's quack look like and much, much more besides.