BOOK
Richard Rhodes: Arsenals of Folly
(Alfred A. Knopf)
In November 1983, the world almost came to an end when
a toxic mix of Soviet paranoia and American saber rattling brought us to the brink of nuclear war. In this gripping history of the Cold War arms race, Richard Rhodes, the Half Moon Bay–based author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, replays the shoddy (not to say downright insane) decision-making that drove this weapons buildup, and describes Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev’s subsequent efforts to talk their nations down from the ledge. While the book gets bogged down at times in policy-speak (“finite deterrence,” anyone?), it mostly rips along like a good thriller, with a valuable post-9/11 perspective to boot. Indeed, many of the miscreants who lied us into the Iraq war—Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle—were also responsible for the American arms buildup under Reagan and his GOP predecessor, Gerald Ford. Some, like Perle, also did their damnedest to torpedo the arms control deals of the 1980s. Now we may be on the verge of a new and less stable nuclear era, as Iran, North Korea, and possibly al Qaeda scramble to get the bomb. It’s scary stuff, and enough to make you pine for the relative certainties of those long-ago Reagan-Gorbachev summits.  B
CHRIS SMITH


CD
IMPERIAL TEEN:
THE HAIR THE TV THE BABY & THE BAND
(Merge)
As rockers age, they often give interviews about wanting to bring their art form to a new level of maturity. Yet their lyrics often revert to tired clichés about wayward women and shiny cars (thinking of the Rolling Stones here). Someone should mail Keith a copy of Imperial Teen’s latest album, because this half-L.A., half–Bay Area quartet’s fourth disc rocks hard while tackling the minutia of getting older. Here’s a band that can sing the praises of canned fruit, Levolor blinds, and baby bonnets while making its audience bounce around like a bag of SuperBalls. On their new CD, whose title refers to the life stuff that got in the way of recording, the Teens continue to ply the formula they’ve worked since 1995, concocting endearing pop songs that chug along with rough-edged guitar hooks, multipart male and female harmonies, and the odd keyboard filigree. On ballads like “Room with a View” and “Fallen Idol,” the group showcases a newfound loungey touch as they give failure and disappointment a gorgeous lilt. Perhaps with age has come the understanding that success can be a thorny beast. Or, as Will Schwartz and Roddy Bottum sing (on “Everything”), “I love everything / Everything that’s beautiful / Everything that’s horrible.”  A-
DAN STRACHOTA

MOVIE