This week's podcast, two versions of Scary. First up, how afraid should we be of nuclear

war? Fred Kaplan joins us to talk about his book, The Bomb.

Then, what if you prefer your scares to be fictional? Sarah Lyle will be here to tell

us about the latest and best thrillers to get you through Winters Cold Knights. Plus, our

critics will join us for the latest in literary criticism. This is the February 2nd episode

of the Book of View Podcasts from the New York Times. I'm Pamela Paul.

Fred Kaplan is here. He is the author of several books, including Dark Territory, The Secret

History of Cyberwar, The Insurgents, David Petraeus, and The Plot to Change the American Way of War.

The Wizards of Armageddon, and now The Bomb. President, General, and The Secret History of

Nuclear War. Fred, thanks for being here. Oh, it's good to be here.

So, I want to bring up those previous books for a moment. The last book you did was about

cybersecurity. It seems like you're sort of going back in time technologically to nuclear war.

Well, you'd think. I really never thought that I would write another book about nuclear war. My

first book was about nuclear war. The Wizards of Armageddon. It was about the group of think-tank

intellectuals who invented all these concepts of nuclear deterrence and war fighting. I thought,

okay, that's done. Then Donald Trump did his fire in fury and war seemed even not unlikely.

It's not impossible, I'd say. I said, oh, God, I'm going to have to get back into the nuclear thing.

In the meantime, this kind of shows how old I am. The span of time between Hiroshima and the

Wizards of Armageddon, which was published in 1983, is about the same as between Wizards of

Armageddon and now. So, there's a lot to update, and a lot of new stuff has become declassified.

So, it's not just an updated version. It's an entirely new book. And, you know, again,

I wouldn't have predicted it even a few years ago, but I'm glad I did it. One point that I make

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