Bertrand Russell was a distinguished British philosopher, whose long life was punctuated by challenges to authority on behalf of peace movements. He opposed the First World War and was imprisoned as a result. Russell was a passionate opponent of nuclear weapons, which he believed posed an existential threat to life on earth. Along with Albert Einstein, he was the author of the Russell-Einstein manifesto in 1955, which warned about the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. Ten of the eleven signatories, including Russell, were Nobel Laureates. In this controversial text written in the height of the Cold War, Russell argues that the only way to end the threat of nuclear war is to end war itself.