Introduction
A shiver of terror
Growing concern
The first imaginings
Motives
Self-imposed constraints
Nuclear coercion: just hoaxes?
Designing the threat
Black markets
A small cup of Italian coffee
Lebed's lost luggage
Visions of mass destruction
The "new terrorism"
From a balance of terror to a world unhinged
An age of alarms
America the anxious
The first terrorist nuclear power
Is deterrence dead?
A self-sustaining fission of fear
A choice of reactions
A brilliant yellow light
Reflections on the shadows of doom
Countering our own fear.