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November 2025 Book of Note
November 2025
Nuclear Abolition: A Scenario
By Timmon Wallis
Indispensable Press, 2025
In this book, Timmon Wallis, executive director of NuclearBan.US, presents a detailed and hopeful vision for dismantling nuclear weapons worldwide. The title riffs off the 2024 bestseller, Nuclear War: A Scenario, in which author Annie Jacobson charts the chain of events that could unfold during a nuclear conflict, ending in global devastation. Wallis, in contrast, imagines a step-by-step pathway of activism leading to complete nuclear abolition.
Drawing on extensive interviews with disarmament campaigners and experts from countries as varied as South Africa, Sierra Leone, Australia, and Ireland, Wallis shows that abolishing nuclear weapons is not simply a matter of persuading political leaders; it requires shifting the center of geopolitical gravity toward direct grassroots action. His scenario envisions national and global movements using legal frameworks—from local legislation to multilateral agreements such as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—to delegitimize and even criminalize nuclear arsenals.
Walis emphasizes the power of financial pressure, including divestment campaigns, boycotts, and the targeting of nuclear weapons manufacturers such as General Electric, Ford, and Motorola, as a direct way to disrupt the nuclear weapons industrial complex. He highlights how similar tactics in the 1980s helped lay the groundwork for negotiations leading to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. He argues that these remain practical, actionable tools for individuals, communities, and civil society organizations seeking nuclear abolishment today.
By reframing the conversation from “if” nuclear abolition is possible to “how” it can be achieved, Wallis offers a roadmap that is urgent and empowering. His book is a pragmatic call to action that insists that dismantling the world’s most destructive weapons is not only necessary, but achievable through collective will and coordinated effort.—SHAGHAYEGH CHRIS ROSTAMPOUR