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The end of the Cold War was also supposed to herald the end of the threat of global nuclear warfare which hung over a generation like an enormous collective sword of Damocles. Michael Foot's book Dr Strangelove, I Presume dispels any such comfortable ideas of the disappearance of the nuclear nightmare. Inspired by the nuclear arms races sparked in Asia which followed the atomic tests carried out by both Pakistan and India in the spring of 1998, Foot's book points out with great passion and conviction that the threat of nuclear catastrophe is, if anything, even more likely in the light of the fluid and unstable nature of global politics in the post-Cold War era. Ironically, Foot's book often reads like a memoir from a bygone era of the intransigent politics of Cold War warriors like Kennedy, Kruschev and Reagan. Earlier sections often seem rather rambling and full of quirky asides, but what redeems the book is Foot's anger and incredulity at the folly and hypocrisy of the actions of both India and Pakistan, as he traces with great precision the history of their nuclear stand-off. The final sections of the book show old Footie at his best, issuing a rallying call to the peace movement and the international community to wake up to the renewed threat of nuclear confrontation. This is an important book from one of the more principled statesmen of 20th-century politics, which stresses the need to remember, rather than forget, the follies of the Cold War era. --Jerry Brotton
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