Nuclear war prevention continues to rank low on the list of immediate citizen concerns. Despite the fact that nearly twenty years after the Cold War has ended, humankind is potentially even closer to a nuclear event. It is still faced with the genuine risk of instant extinction without representation. Even worse, this possibility could occur by accident, as a single computer miscalculation or mechanical error could lead to a civilization-ending nuclear war. This book was written to equip concerned members of the world with the tools needed to engage in ending nuclear weapons. These tools have been shaped and tested over nearly fifty years of work towards this end by Dr. Bill Wickersham and includes some of his personal experiences that have, and haven't, worked over the years. With the help of Jared Gassen, The book concisely revisits the nuclear weapons issue and provides a step-by-step roadmap for the abolition of nuclear weapons taken from the writings of Jonathan Schell, David Cortright, David Krieger, and Randall Caroline Forsberg. It describes various social and psychological obstacles to education and action related to nuclear disarmament, and devotes separate chapters to the role of education, religion, media, and the local community on behalf of nuclear weapons abolition. A unique feature of the book is the educational philosophic underpinning for instructional course development, with an emphasis on curriculum construction for academic institutions, faith communities, and local civic organizations.
About the Author: Dr. Bill Wickersham is an educational psychologist and adjunct professor of Peace Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia and has been working towards nuclear abolition for nearly 50 years. He is also a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation of Santa Barbara, California. Previous teaching assignments were at the Universities of Iowa and Southern Illinois-Carbondale, as well as Prescott College in Arizona. While at Iowa between 1973 and 1975, Wickersham was College Program Coordinator of the College of Law's Center for World Order Studies. From 1981 to 1985, he served as executive director of the Washington, D.C. based World Federalists Association. At that time, he was an early leader in the U.S. Nuclear Freeze movement. Later, Wickersham served as the manager of nationwide training courses for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. In 200l, he received the Gandhi, King, Ikeda Peace Award from the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia.