A Higher Form of Killing

by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman

(1982)

Publisher: Random House

A Higher Form of Killing was first published to great acclaim in 1982. The authors have written a new Introduction and a new Epilogue to take account of the events that have happened since the early 1980s – including the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the black market that appeared in chemical and biological weapons, the acquisition of these weapons by various Third World states, the attempts of various countries like Iraq to build up arsenals of these weapons and, most recently, the use of these weapons in terrorist attacks.

As the authors point out, the two generations since the Second World War lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Now a new generation must learn to live with weapons that are more insidious and potentially more devastating.

The book opens with the first devastating battlefield use of lethal gas in World War I, and then investigates the stockpiling of biological weapons during World War II and in the decades afterward as well as the inhuman experiments conducted to test their effectiveness.

The updated edition includes a new Introduction and a new final chapter exposing frightening developments in recent years, including the black market that emerged in chemical and biological weapons following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the acquisition of these weapons by various Third World states, the attempts of countries such as Iraq to build up arsenals, and–particularly and most recently–the use of these weapons in terrorist attacks.