Biological War: A Scenario
by Annie Jacobsen
View on GoodreadsTake the minute-by-minute format of Nuclear War: A Scenario and swap the bomb for a recombinant, antibiotic-resistant plague with no cure. Infected travelers carry it through airports and onto cruise ships, and you watch Jacobsen's hypothetical overwhelm the systems built to respond, ending in mass death and civil unrest.
Core ideas
- Invisible by design: Unlike a nuclear blast, a biological weapon spreads unseen, and the scenario covers lab accidents as well as deliberate attack.
- Thin defenses: About 110 maximum-security labs in 34 countries hold the deadliest pathogens, and the Soviet program pursued weapons like this plague.
- Real research underneath: The scenario rests on interviews with military, medical and political experts, and US policy has authorized preemptive nuclear strikes on suspected bioweapons labs.
Published2026
Pages432
ISBN9798217046034
ReadJul 2026
