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Old 07-16-2020, 03:22 PM
comped comped is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2012
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I'm honestly surprised that the following pair of books has yet to be recommended here - while I've seen the first one discussed in a different thread around when it came out, the latter I couldn't find anything on.

First is - This Is Only a Test. (https://www.amazon.com/This-only-Tes.../dp/1403965544) One of two excellent books on nuclear preparedness during the cold war, this book in particular doesn't just talk about facilities, it talks about plans - everything from the Presidents, to SCOTUS, and even 9/11. I have, for a while now, been attempting to find more research on SCOTUS' part in COG to send his way, as it's rarely mentioned the book - I emailed the author and he even admitted that I basically found as much as he did in terms of modern-ish research on that particular topic - given it was published only 5 years after 9/11, he probably had even less at the time of writing. It's a really good book though. Harder to find.

Raven Rock (https://www.amazon.com/Raven-Rock-Go.../dp/1476735409) is a far easier to get ahold of book, that treads much of the same ground as the other, while also being quite a bit more of a commercial success. It's really long, and quite detailed, giving a real sense of how the COG machine built up from the early days of the bomb on forward - and how sometimes, things didn't always go to plan. It also includes far more on the period after 9/11 (since it was published 15+ years after), and it benefits from this distance, and release of additional documents in the decade since the previous work, to expand the picture greatly. It's is not, unlike This Is Only A Test, written by a history professor, but is still worth reading particularly if you're interested on the more modern, post-cold-war side of things.
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