One World or None

Abstract

THE atomic bomb is one great cause of political uncertainty in the world to-day. Although the difficulty of reaching a satisfactory solution of the problem is largely confined to the relationship between the United States, the great Power which possesses the bomb, and the U.S.S.R., the other great Power of to-day which does not yet have stocks of the revolutionary weapon, the significance of the new discoveries is probably greatest of all for Great Britain and the Commonwealth. The concentration of industry and population in the cities of the British Isles, the island isolation which has been such an asset in the past, but which now prevents adequate dispersal or effective interception of fast aircraft, our dependence on sea communications and the very nature of our climate which offers cover to the raider, all combine to make us more vulnerable than any other industrial country. At the same time, the probability that atomic energy will provide abundant power which could counteract many of the disabilities of large parts of the Commonwealth, which are ill-endowed by Nature, means that we have a special positive stake in the elimination of the war-like uses of atomic energy and rapid development of all its peaceful applications.

One World or None

Edited by Dexter Masters Katharine Way. (Whittlesey House Publication.) Pp. xi+79. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1946.) 5s.