an excellent production from SIPRI, useful both as a textbook and as a source of ideas, for the case studies are in general dispassionate, comprehensive and well-documented ... The four opening essays on the USA and Soviet Union seem to me of particularly high quality; they have the detachment of true history.

• Introduction, Regina Cowen Karp; beyond nuclearism, Ken Booth and Nicholas J. Wheeler; towards non-nuclear security - costs, benefits, prerequisites, Erwin Hackel; legal issues concerning the feasibility of nuclear weapon elimination, Julie Dahlitz; thinking about no nuclear weapons - technical and strategic constraints on transitions and end-points, Paul C. White, et al; verification of nuclear weapon elimination, Patricia M. Lewis; nuclear weapon elimination - fissile material and warheads, Frank von Hippel; nuclear proliferation and the elimination of nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden and George Quester; the role of hegemonies and alliances, Harald Muller; minimum deterrence and nuclear abolition, Nicholas J. Wheeler.