Biological War: A Scenario
Biological War: A Scenario
by Annie Jacobsen
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About the Book
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.
Published on July 28, 2026
About the Author
Annie Jacobsen is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–finalist in history The Pentagon’s Brain, the New York Times bestsellers Area 51 and Operation Paperclip, and other books. She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.
Editorial Reviews
“A scrupulously realistic book about the inconceivable…This is important work…Biological War is an indictment of the weapons programs that created our discomfiting reality, and of a leadership that has allowed it to continue.”— The New Yorker
“This book moves like a meteor…Biological War is a heavily researched book about contagious and potentially civilization-ending pathogens…That so many were willing to talk to her, and have their names affixed to this book, indicates the esteem in which she is held.”— New York Times Book Review
“Will scare your pants off, but in a deliciously readable fashion.”— Boston Globe
“The scenario here is fictional, but the horrors are not only possible but based on real actions, plans, and fears collected by veteran author Annie Jacobsen in her new book.”— The New York Post
“It’s gripping and very, very scary at how this scenario plays out.”— Transfer Orbit
“Read this book. It is a better briefing on the problem than the one we received in Downing Street six years ago – and that is not just a compliment to Jacobsen but more an indictment of us.”— The Spectator Magazine (UK)