Calum L. Matheson is assistant professor of public deliberation and civic life at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of peer-reviewed scholarship that has appeared in Argumentation and Advocacy, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Games and Culture, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech.

Addresses head on the vexing—and I mean vexing—question of the symbolic and affective power of the Bomb."" - Ned O'Gorman, author of Spirits of the Cold War: Contesting Worldviews in the Classical Age of American Security StrategyDesiring the Bomb is a brilliant, insightful, and sometimes humorous examination of nuclear apocalyptic discourse keyed to the organizing figure of the Bomb. It's the first groundbreaking, book-length analysis of nuclear rhetoric from a psychoanalytic perspective. Matheson's study is a substantially original contribution—chilling in its implications—to the theoretical humanities in general, and communication and rhetorical studies in particular."" - Joshua Gunn, author of Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Enduring Half-Lives of the BombChapter 1. Fort: Trinity and the RealChapter 2. Da: War GamesChapter 3. Fort: Desired Ground ZeroesChapter 4. Da: SurvivalConclusion: Dragons on the MapNotesWorks CitedIndex

Calum L. Matheson is assistant professor of public deliberation and civic life at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of peer-reviewed scholarship that has appeared in Argumentation and Advocacy, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Games and Culture, and the Quarterly Journal of Speech.

Addresses head on the vexing—and I mean vexing—question of the symbolic and affective power of the Bomb."" - Ned O'Gorman, author of Spirits of the Cold War: Contesting Worldviews in the Classical Age of American Security StrategyDesiring the Bomb is a brilliant, insightful, and sometimes humorous examination of nuclear apocalyptic discourse keyed to the organizing figure of the Bomb. It's the first groundbreaking, book-length analysis of nuclear rhetoric from a psychoanalytic perspective. Matheson's study is a substantially original contribution—chilling in its implications—to the theoretical humanities in general, and communication and rhetorical studies in particular."" - Joshua Gunn, author of Modern Occult Rhetoric: Mass Media and the Drama of Secrecy in the Twentieth Century

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Enduring Half-Lives of the BombChapter 1. Fort: Trinity and the RealChapter 2. Da: War GamesChapter 3. Fort: Desired Ground ZeroesChapter 4. Da: SurvivalConclusion: Dragons on the MapNotesWorks CitedIndex