The Warhead: The Quest to Build the Perfect Weapon in the Age of Modern Warfare

From award-winning journalist and coauthor of The 15:17 to Paris, an affecting human history of the first self-steering bomb

Paveway, the first “smart” bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable.

In The Warhead, Jeffrey Stern tells the story of Paveway through the lives of seven interconnected stories. They’re stories of Nazis, Kennedys, Operation Paperclip, and Walt Disney; of the Apollo mission and the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Paveway inadvertently sparked the personal computing revolution and the adoption of GPS, it ushered in the era of modern warfare, and it shows up at critical historical moments throughout the last half century.

At once revelatory and deeply human, The Warhead unearths the complicated truth behind one of the most significant weapons of our time.

Author: Jeffrey E. Stern
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Dutton
Published: 01/20/2026
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781524746421
Language: English