Eric Schlosser Books

The Titan II stood at the heart of America’s nuclear strategy—a towering, liquid-fueled missile buried underground, always ready for war but ideally never to be fired. Its presence symbolized the logic of deterrence: readiness equals peace. But the environment in which these missiles existed was nei...

From Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

On the evening of September 18, 1980, routine maintenance at the Damascus silo went terribly wrong. Two maintenance airmen, working deep underground, dropped a socket from a wrench. The tool fell down the silo’s long shaft and punctured the missile’s pressurized fuel tank. In seconds, explosive vapo...

From Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

The roots of the fast food industry stretch deep into the sunlit streets of Southern California in the years after World War II. The state was bursting with prosperity, automobiles were plentiful, and the dream of efficiency was everywhere. Men like Carl Karcher, who began with a single hot dog cart...

From Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

The genius and danger of fast food expansion lay in franchising. When I delved into its mechanics, I saw how franchising turned once-local diners into appendages of national corporations. The model encouraged individuals to buy a piece of the dream—the semblance of independence with minimal entrepre...

From Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal