The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

This whirlwind tour of CND's history provides an accessible account of the political context, campaigning dynamics and significant impact of Britain's most enduring mass movement. Taking in key stops like Aldermaston, Greenham Common, Vietnam and Iraq, Shaw tells the story of this powerful grass-roots movement and brings it right up to date – as it continues to fight for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Well worth a read.

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has been at the centre of anti-nuclear protest in the UK for six decades. Martin Shaw has written a stimulating, balanced and comprehensive account of its remarkable history – something we all need to know about if we are to find ways to act in the face of renewed nuclear dangers including explicit nuclear threats, the unravelling of nuclear arms control, and the development of new generations of nuclear weapons.

Shaw expertly synthesizes over 75 years of anti-nuclear protests and resistance into one compelling, highly readable, short history. The result is the single best survey of the anti-nuclear movement in Britain, told judiciously by one of its long-term participants and a respected scholar of international relations.

Martin Shaw’s excellent book is the first comprehensive study of the multi-faceted and complex movement of opposition to nuclear weapons: it is informed, reflective and reliable, drawing on a range of sources, and judicious in its analysis. It is, moreover, well written and readable.

As a sociologist and an activist who has participated in many of the campaigns discussed in this book, Martin Shaw is exceptionally well-qualified to write what will surely become the definitive history of CND. Using a wealth of newly available materials and with access to some of the key players, Shaw moves expertly across the decades, dissecting the successes and failures of those who have sought to rid Britain and the world of the threat of nuclear destruction. A key strength of the book lies in Shaw showing not only how CND was part of a wider transnational antinuclear movement, but also what CND contributed to this wider struggle. Some of his interpretations are controversial, not least the role he ascribes to CND and END in ending the Cold War, but they are all persuasively argued here. An impressive intellectual achievement.