In his new book, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, he rethinks the relationship between war and political power. Schell writes that military power is not as effective as it once was, and that a more useful approach is one of cooperation with other nations. Schell is also the author of the 1982 classic The Fate of the Earth. He has written for The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly.
Schell rose to prominence for his 1982 book Fate of the Earth, about nuclear disarmament. A former staffer at the New Yorker, he has a new book called Observing the Nixon Years, about the precarious position the United States was in during the Vietnam War.