The Quest to Build the Perfect Weapon in the Age of Modern Warfare
Penguin
January 2026
On Sale: January 20, 2026
416 pages ISBN: 1524746428 EAN: 9781524746421 Kindle: B0F5PJ3BP2 Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook Add to Wish List
From award-winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb
Paveway, the first "smart" bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable.
In The Warhead, Jeffrey Stern tells the story of Paveway through the lives of seven interconnected stories. They're stories of Nazis, Kennedys, Operation Paperclip, and Walt Disney; of the Apollo mission and the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Paveway inadvertently sparked the personal computing revolution and the adoption of GPS, it ushered in the era of modern warfare, and it shows up at critical historical moments throughout the last half century.
At once revelatory and deeply human, The Warhead unearths the complicated truth behind one of the most significant weapons of our time.
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