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Biological War by Annie Jacobsen.jpg

Biological War by Annie Jacobsen

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Hardcover:

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

New York Times Editors' Choice… One of People's 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer… The Next Big Idea Club's July 2026 Must-Read Books… One of the New York Times Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer… Sunset Magazine's 15 New Books You Don't Want to Miss

From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her reporting: biological warfare.

A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario. It would be only a matter of days from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.

The fallout: mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other words: dystopia.

Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear bomb: There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small, and something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result.

This is what could happen; a ticking-clock roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.

Instant New York Times Bestseller!

New York Times Editors' Choice… One of People's 15 Most Anticipated Books of Summer… The Next Big Idea Club's July 2026 Must-Read Books… One of the New York Times Nonfiction Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer… Sunset Magazine's 15 New Books You Don't Want to Miss

From Annie Jacobsen, the author of the bestselling Nuclear War: A Scenario, a book on a subject that has long orbited her reporting: biological warfare.

A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic, and the collapse of human society. In this essential new book, based on dozens of new interviews with experts with high-level political, governmental, medical, and military responsibility, Annie Jacobsen examines this very scenario. It would be only a matter of days from such a global infection before the infrastructure built to handle this gravest of situations would be in a battle for human existence.

The fallout: mass death, total societal breakdown, widespread insurrection, anarchy, and a plague-ravaged wasteland that no longer resembles modern civilization. In other words: dystopia.

Following the gripping narrative style that launched Nuclear War to the New York Times bestseller list, Jacobsen looks deeply at a situation that is in some ways the opposite of a nuclear bomb: There is no mushroom cloud, no shock wave or blast. Instead, the scenario that could end the world as we know it begins with something so small, and something so malicious, that when used for evil, only evil can result.

This is what could happen; a ticking-clock roadmap to the hours, days, and weeks following the release of a biological agent, that serves as the most essential, forward-looking journalism in preparation for urgent societal upheaval.

  • Publisher: Dutton

    Title: Biological War: A Scenario

    Author: Annie Jacobsen

    On Sale Date: July 28, 2026

    ISBN 13: 9798217046034

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $33.00

    BISAC: Domestic Politics; Science & Technology

    Page Count: 432

    Dimensions: 6 x 9 in

  • Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, Area 51, Operation Paperclip, and The Pentagon's Brain. A graduate of Princeton University and a former contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine, she lives in Los Angeles.

  • Readers are calling it terrifying, essential, and impossible to shake:

    • "Read this in one sitting and haven't stopped thinking about it since."

    • "Jacobsen makes the abstract horrifyingly concrete — meticulously reported and genuinely frightening."

    • "The follow-up to Nuclear War is just as gripping, and just as necessary."

    • "Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand real-world risk, not just headlines."

This book is for you if

  • You devoured Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War and want her next hour-by-hour worst-case scenario.

  • You're drawn to deeply reported nonfiction built on interviews with real political, medical, and military experts.

  • You want to understand how a biological attack or pandemic could actually unfold, step by step.

  • You like your nonfiction to read with the pacing and tension of a thriller.

  • You're a reader of national-security and science journalism looking for the next essential book on the shelf.

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