Published in conjunction with the eight-hour PBS series, Avoiding Armageddon focuses our attention like never before on threats posed by terrorism and unsecured weapons of mass destruction. It delves into an exploration of those who endanger our national interest, the forms their threats might take, and what can be done to avert the kinds of disasters likely to ensue. In the dozen years since the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear, biological or chemical attacks—the "weapons of mass destruction" we have become familiar with—being unleashed against civilian populations has loomed ever larger.

A deadly combination of shortsighted mistakes by Western governments, chaos in the former Soviet Union, and virulent international terrorism has succeeded in making us all far more vulnerable than many would like to admit. Avoiding Armageddon is a world citizen's guide to the worst possible threats to our individual and national securit—from easily accessible uranium to smallpox outbreaks to a new breed of suicide bomber—and what we can do to save ourselves, our country and the planet. Drawing on numerous interviews with world leaders, experts, former terrorists and would-be nuclear thieves, Martin Schram explains how and why biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare may very well be our next nightmare.

Reporting from hot spots around the globe, Avoiding Armageddon is a riveting and sober story of America and the world's vulnerability in an age of terrorism. Impeccably researched and compellingly written, it offers an original assessment of how the threats and solutions are intertwined-and how world leaders and citizens must act boldly to assure our personal, national, and global security.