I also just finished reading this book, and likewise found it quite interesting. Though I do find myself somewhat skeptical of some of the claims made in the book. E.g., as you note, there’s uncertainty around the specifics of nuclear winter—yet I seem to recall Ellsberg writing as if this wasn’t a topic of major debate, and as if it was near-certain that there’s be an extremely catastrophic nuclear winter in a wide range of nuclear exchanges.
But every time general war was mentioned, a little voice in my head yelled “nuclear winter!” – that the death toll is actually >90% of humanity, Americans, Russians, Chinese, and everyone else alike, unbeknownst to everybody at the time.
Related to the uncertainty about the likelihood and impacts of nuclear winter conditional on nuclear war, I think “the death toll is actually 90% of humanity” may overstate things. That may have been a likely death toll (conditional on full-scale nuclear war) during some periods of the Cold War, when nuclear arsenals were much larger. But I think that was probably unlikely (though plausible) both before and after those periods. (Some analysis on this here. Also, of course, even just a relatively small chance of a >90% death toll can still be a very big deal!)
[Arriving very late to the party]
I also just finished reading this book, and likewise found it quite interesting. Though I do find myself somewhat skeptical of some of the claims made in the book. E.g., as you note, there’s uncertainty around the specifics of nuclear winter—yet I seem to recall Ellsberg writing as if this wasn’t a topic of major debate, and as if it was near-certain that there’s be an extremely catastrophic nuclear winter in a wide range of nuclear exchanges.
Related to the uncertainty about the likelihood and impacts of nuclear winter conditional on nuclear war, I think “the death toll is actually 90% of humanity” may overstate things. That may have been a likely death toll (conditional on full-scale nuclear war) during some periods of the Cold War, when nuclear arsenals were much larger. But I think that was probably unlikely (though plausible) both before and after those periods. (Some analysis on this here. Also, of course, even just a relatively small chance of a >90% death toll can still be a very big deal!)