Protest And Survive

Protest and Survive (1980) by E. P. Thompson and Dan Smith
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 0140523413
Condition: Good
Sold by: Crappy Old Books

There was a time when the British government thoughtfully advised its citizens that, in the event of nuclear war, they might improve their chances of survival by hiding under a table, painting their windows white and constructing a makeshift shelter from doors, cushions and whatever else happened to be lying around the house. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons rather more destructive than the average domestic inconvenience, and the prospect of surviving Armageddon beneath a dining-room table struck some people as a trifle optimistic.

Enter Protest and Survive, the gloriously defiant 1980 publication associated with historian E. P. Thompson and peace campaigner Dan Smith, whose title delivered a decidedly pointed response to the government’s reassuringly titled Protect and Survive. Where official advice concentrated on what to do after somebody had launched nuclear missiles, Thompson and his fellow campaigners suggested the rather more sensible policy of preventing the missiles from being launched in the first place.

It was a radical proposition, particularly during the Cold War, when the superpowers were accumulating enough nuclear weaponry to destroy civilisation several times over, presumably in case the first destruction proved insufficient.

Published at a moment of mounting international tension, Protest and Survive challenged the assumptions underpinning the nuclear arms race, questioned the political logic of deterrence and helped articulate the growing resistance to the deployment of new nuclear weapons across Europe. It belonged to an era of cruise missiles, NATO strategy, Soviet military power and the uncomfortable realisation that ordinary Europeans might find themselves living on the battlefield of somebody else’s ideological disagreement.

E. P. Thompson, already distinguished as a major British historian and socialist intellectual, brought his formidable analytical powers to the subject. The result was not simply an expression of moral outrage but a challenge to the political and military calculations that had transformed the possibility of mass annihilation into an apparently respectable instrument of international diplomacy.

There is something splendidly British about the whole business. Faced with the prospect of nuclear extinction, the establishment produced a practical household pamphlet, while its critics responded with another pamphlet explaining why nuclear extinction was perhaps not a desirable outcome in the first place. One can almost imagine the resulting debate taking place in a village hall, interrupted occasionally by complaints about the heating.

More than four decades later, Protest and Survive remains a fascinating historical document, capturing the anxieties, arguments and extraordinary political atmosphere of the early 1980s. It also offers a reminder that public protest has sometimes involved rather more than waving placards: occasionally it has required confronting the fundamental assumptions of global military strategy.

This 1980 Penguin edition is in Good condition and offered by Crappy Old Books, where we regard the continued existence of civilisation as broadly beneficial to the second-hand book trade.

An absorbing piece of Cold War political history, and an excellent reminder that when confronted with the possibility of nuclear annihilation, rearranging the living-room furniture may not be the most effective response.

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