Ever since the development of the atomic bomb in 1945, the world has lived under the threat of nuclear war. The early years of the Cold War transposed the fear of atomic weapons onto the fear of Communism that was a threat to American ways. By the 1980s, the citizens of the world had enough of nuclear anxiety, and Communism no longer seemed to be an existential threat. Operation Panic revisits the fears and anxieties— and the imagined future— of a world changed by atomic weapons. Operation Panic: Cold War Stories of the Atomic Bomb is an anthology of short fiction originally published between 1946 and 1980, with stories focusing on the use of atomic weapons and images of Cold War propaganda and atomic bomb tests. This collection features stories from Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Judith Merril, Hugh Hood, Fritz Leiber, Philip Wylie, Roger Angell, Carol Amen, James Blish, along with many others.