A Chemical and Biological Weapons Reading List.

A great deal has been written in recent years about chemical and biological weapons. Some of it is good and some of it is not so good. There are excellent discussions of the problems of responding to attacks and turgid polemical tracts on the ethics of development and use of weapons of mass destruction. The list below includes some of the books that we have used as sources in developing these pages and some that may help the general reader. The list is subject to revision. There are some good books out there that we haven't had a chance to read yet.

Although a number of technical texts, such as books dealing with veterinary medicine, microbiology, industrial chemistry and analytical instrumentation were used by us. We have chosen not to list them. In some cases a large and expensive text would only help to clarify a line of one page and we cannot justify making such a recommendation.

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For emergency personnel, Chemical weapons, Biological weapons, Radiological weapons,
History , Terrorism, Counterproliferation and Policy, Return to the introduction.

Title	Author	Publisher	Comments
For emergency responders
Chem-Bio: Frequently Asked Questions	Barbara Graves (editor)	Tempest	An introduction for the non-specialist written by the staff of CBWInfo.
First Responder Chem-Bio Handbook	Ben Venzke (editor)	Tempest	A justifiably widely-used handbook for the first responder.
Chemical.
Chemical Warfare Agents: Toxicology and Treatment	Timothy C. Marrs et al.	John Wiley	Most comprehensive overview of chemical agents.
Chemical Warfare Agents: Toxicity at Low Levels	Satu M. Somani and, James A. Romano (editors)	Lewis
Biological
Biological Warfare: Modern Offense and Defense	Raymond A. Zilinskas	Rienner	Excellent overview of the field.
The Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine	Michael Eddleston and Steven Pierini	Oxford University Press	Excellent information on many tropical diseases, including many potential biological agents in a convenient format and at an excellent price.
Radiological
Sampling and Surveying Radiological Environments	Mark Byrnes and David King	CRC Press	Radiological incidents are the stepchildren of WMD attacks, but they are not to be ignored. These two books help to repair that omission.
Handling of Radiation Accident Patients by Paramedical and Hospital Personnel	Thomas A. Carder	CRC Press

History
AHigher Form of Killing	Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman	Hill and Wang	The first of the histories of chemical and biological weapons, and still one of the best.
Yellow Rain: a Journey Through the Terror of Chemical Warfare	Sterling Seagrave	Evans (curently out of print)	An investigative journalist looks into the Yellow Rain controversy.
Plague Wars: the Terrifying Reality of Biological Warfare	Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg	St. Martin's Press	Episodic but expansive overview of biological warfare in the 20th Century.
The Biology of Doom	Ed Regis	Henry Holt	A history of the US biological warfare program.
The Plague Makers: the Secret World of Biological Warfare	Wendy Barnaby	Vision Paperbacks (UK)	Briefer and less detailed than some of the others, but better than some offerings we don't list.
Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War	Judith Miller et al.	Simon and Schuster	Gets off to a shaky start, but good coverage of the Gulf War and later developments.
Biohazard	Ken Alibek and Stephen Handelmann	Random House	Alibek's surprising exposé of the massive Soviet biological weapons program.
Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare1932-1945 and the American Cover-up	Sheldon H. Harris	Routledge	A gruesome operation that went unpunished.
Plagues and Peoples	William H. McNeill	Anchor	The classic study of the effects of epidemics on human life and society.
Rats, Lice and History	Hans Zinsser	Black Dog and Leventhal	Probably verbose for modern tastes, but the history of a major disease written by someone who played a key role in unravelling its mystery.
Anthrax: the Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak	Jeanne Guillemin	California University Press	The story of the investigation into the true nature of the anthrax outbreak at Severdlovsk in 1979.
The Demon in the Freezer	Richard Preston	Random House	The most recent book on smallpox and biological warfare.
Pox Americana: the Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82	Elizabeth A. Fenn	Hill and Wang	The natural history of an epidemic that had profound effects on a continent.
Scourge: the Once and Future Threat of Smallpox	Jonathan B. Tucker	Atlantic Monthly Press	The fall and possible rise of smallpox is described.
Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times	Arno Karlen	Touchstone	Three books looking at the relationship between man and disease and the role of disease in human history.
Yellow Fever: Black Goddess. The Coevolution of People and Plagues	Christopher Wills	Addison Wesley
Viruses Plagues and History	Michael B. A. Oldstone	Oxford University Press
Terrorism, Counterproliferation and Policy
Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe	Michael Osterholz and John Schwartz	DeLacorte Press	Title and the text are a bit overwrought, but has lots of good points.
The Ultimate Terrorists	Jessica Stern	Harvard University Press	Excellent overview of terrorism and the possible role of weapons of mass destruction.
The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons	Sidney Drell et al (Eds)	Hoover Press	An informative collection of essays on the topics of proliferation, terrorism and counterproliferation.
Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons	Jonathan B. Tucker	BCSIA	Informed and critical analysis of terrorist incidents thought to involve chemical or biological weapons.
Biological Weapons: Limiting the Threat and Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons	Joshua Lederberg (editor)	BCSIA	A series of articles on biological weapons from the Journala of the American Medical Association.
Instruments of Terror: Mass Destruction has Never Been so Easy	Frank Barnaby	Vision Paperbacks	A brief but well-informed overview of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Destroying the World to Save It	Robert Jay Lifton	Metropolitan Books	Two books describing the efforts of the Aum Shinrikyo cult to obtain and use chemical and biological weapons and the drive that sent them down the road of mass destruction.
The Cult at the End of the World	David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall
Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem for Once and for All	Terry Ritter	Simon and Schuster	Three books giving insight into how even the most intrusive inspection regime can be stymied when looking for chemical and biological weapons.
Saddam's Secret: The Hunt for Iraq's Hidden Weapons	Tim Trevan	Harper Collins
The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Growing Crisis in Global Security	Richard Butler
Gene Wars: Military Control over the New Genetic Technologies	Charles Piller and Keith Yamamoto	Beech Tree Books (out of print)	One of the first books to adress the challenge of genetic engineering in a biological arms race.
Preventing a Biological Arms Race	Susan Wright	MIT Press (out of print)	Published in 1990, a collection of articles addressing many aspects of the problem of biological warfare.
Chemical and Biological Terrorism: Research and Development to Improve Civilian Medical Response	The Institute of Medicine and National Research Council	National Academy Press	A tough and clear-minded review of the problems faced in response to chemical and biological attacks.
Biological Warfare in the 21st Century	Malcolm Dando	Brassey's	Out of print, which is a shame for such a good overview of the field.
The New Biological Weapons : Threat, Proliferation, and Control	Malcolm Dando	Lynne Rienner	Focuses on biological weapons, esepcially the novel class of biochemical regulators.
The Eleventh Plague : The Politics of Biological and Chemical Warfare	Leonard A. Cole	Freeman	Title speaks for itself. It may be the last book on the list, but is certainly not the least.
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A Chemical and Biological Weapons Reading List.

For emergency personnel, Chemical weapons, Biological weapons, Radiological weapons, History , Terrorism, Counterproliferation and Policy, Return to the introduction.

For emergency responders

Chemical.

For emergency personnel, Chemical weapons, Biological weapons, Radiological weapons,
History , Terrorism, Counterproliferation and Policy, Return to the introduction.