Author: Davide Orsini
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822988852
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups—including local residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians—to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly present and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and in contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, where unique social power dynamics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies.
The Atomic Archipelago
Author: Davide Orsini
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822988852
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups—including local residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians—to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly present and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and in contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, where unique social power dynamics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies.
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822988852
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297
Book Description
In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups—including local residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians—to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly present and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and in contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, where unique social power dynamics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies.
The Archipelago of Another Life
Author: Andreï Makine
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1950691748
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
"This novel about hunting an escapee from Stalinist gulag reads like a Siberian Heart of Darkness." —Julian Barnes On the far eastern borders of the Soviet Union, in the sunset of Stalin’s reign, soldiers are training for a war that could end all wars, for in the atomic age man has sown the seeds of his own destruction. Among them is Pavel Gartsev, a reservist. Orphaned, scarred by the last great war and unlucky in love, he is an instant victim for the apparatchiks and ambitious careerists who thrive within the Red Army’s ranks. Assigned to a search party composed of regulars and reservists, charged with the recapture of an escaped prisoner from a nearby gulag, Gartsev finds himself one of an unlikely quintet of cynics, sadists, and heroes, embarked on a challenging manhunt through the Siberian taiga. But the fugitive, capable, cunning, and evidently at home in the depths of these vast forests, proves no easy prey. As the pursuit goes on, and the pursuers are struck by a shattering discovery, Gartsev confronts both the worst within himself and the tantalizing prospect of another, totally different life.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1950691748
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 199
Book Description
"This novel about hunting an escapee from Stalinist gulag reads like a Siberian Heart of Darkness." —Julian Barnes On the far eastern borders of the Soviet Union, in the sunset of Stalin’s reign, soldiers are training for a war that could end all wars, for in the atomic age man has sown the seeds of his own destruction. Among them is Pavel Gartsev, a reservist. Orphaned, scarred by the last great war and unlucky in love, he is an instant victim for the apparatchiks and ambitious careerists who thrive within the Red Army’s ranks. Assigned to a search party composed of regulars and reservists, charged with the recapture of an escaped prisoner from a nearby gulag, Gartsev finds himself one of an unlikely quintet of cynics, sadists, and heroes, embarked on a challenging manhunt through the Siberian taiga. But the fugitive, capable, cunning, and evidently at home in the depths of these vast forests, proves no easy prey. As the pursuit goes on, and the pursuers are struck by a shattering discovery, Gartsev confronts both the worst within himself and the tantalizing prospect of another, totally different life.
The World of Andrei Sakharov
Author: Gennady Gorelik
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195343743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 457
Book Description
How did Andrei Sakharov, a theoretical physicist and the acknowledged father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, become a human rights activist and the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize? In his later years, Sakharov noted in his diary that he was "simply a man with an unusual fate." To understand this deceptively straightforward statement by an extraordinary man, The World of Andrei Sakharov, the first authoritative study of Andrei Sakharov as a scientist as well as a public figure, relies on previously inaccessible documents, recently declassified archives, and personal accounts by Sakharov's friends and colleagues to examine the real context of Sakharov's life. In the course of doing so, Gennady Gorelik answers a fascinating question, whether the Soviet hydrogen bomb was really fathered by Sakharov, or whether it was based on stolen American secrets. Gorelik concludes that while espionage did initiate the Soviet effort, the Russian hydrogen bomb was invented independently. Gorelik also elucidates the reasons that brought about the seemingly sudden transformation of the top-secret physicist into a public figure in 1968, when Sakharov's famous essay "Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" was distributed in samizdat in the USSR and smuggled out to the West. Recently declassified documents show that Sakharov's metamorphosis was caused by professional concerns, particularly regarding the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense. An insider's view of how the upper echelons of the Soviet regime functioned had led Sakharov to the conclusion that the goals of peace, progress, and human rights were inextricably linked. His free thinking and free feeling were manifested in his hope that scientific thought and religious perception would find a profound synthesis in the future.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195343743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 457
Book Description
How did Andrei Sakharov, a theoretical physicist and the acknowledged father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, become a human rights activist and the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize? In his later years, Sakharov noted in his diary that he was "simply a man with an unusual fate." To understand this deceptively straightforward statement by an extraordinary man, The World of Andrei Sakharov, the first authoritative study of Andrei Sakharov as a scientist as well as a public figure, relies on previously inaccessible documents, recently declassified archives, and personal accounts by Sakharov's friends and colleagues to examine the real context of Sakharov's life. In the course of doing so, Gennady Gorelik answers a fascinating question, whether the Soviet hydrogen bomb was really fathered by Sakharov, or whether it was based on stolen American secrets. Gorelik concludes that while espionage did initiate the Soviet effort, the Russian hydrogen bomb was invented independently. Gorelik also elucidates the reasons that brought about the seemingly sudden transformation of the top-secret physicist into a public figure in 1968, when Sakharov's famous essay "Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" was distributed in samizdat in the USSR and smuggled out to the West. Recently declassified documents show that Sakharov's metamorphosis was caused by professional concerns, particularly regarding the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense. An insider's view of how the upper echelons of the Soviet regime functioned had led Sakharov to the conclusion that the goals of peace, progress, and human rights were inextricably linked. His free thinking and free feeling were manifested in his hope that scientific thought and religious perception would find a profound synthesis in the future.
The Seventh Decade
Author: Jonathan Schell
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805081291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
Explores the growing danger of nuclear conflict since the end of the Cold War, citing issues such as the invasion of Iraq, nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, and the rise of terrorism.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0805081291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270
Book Description
Explores the growing danger of nuclear conflict since the end of the Cold War, citing issues such as the invasion of Iraq, nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, and the rise of terrorism.
A Nuclear Family Vacation
Author: Nathan Hodge
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608196690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
In A Nuclear Family Vacation, husband-and-wife journalists Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger hit the road to explore the secretive world of nuclear weaponry. Weaving together first-class travel writing and crack investigative journalism, the pair pursues both adventures and answers: Why are nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert? Is there really such a thing as a suitcase nuke? And which nuclear power plants are most likely to be covers for weapons programs? Their itinerary takes them from the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan to the U.S.'s own top-secret "Site R," opening a unique perspective on the world's vast nuclear infrastructure and the international politics at play behind it.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608196690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
In A Nuclear Family Vacation, husband-and-wife journalists Nathan Hodge and Sharon Weinberger hit the road to explore the secretive world of nuclear weaponry. Weaving together first-class travel writing and crack investigative journalism, the pair pursues both adventures and answers: Why are nuclear weapons still on hair-trigger alert? Is there really such a thing as a suitcase nuke? And which nuclear power plants are most likely to be covers for weapons programs? Their itinerary takes them from the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan to the U.S.'s own top-secret "Site R," opening a unique perspective on the world's vast nuclear infrastructure and the international politics at play behind it.
Uranium Matters
Author: Zbyn?k A. B. Zeman
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9789639776005
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Examines the impact of the Czechoslovak and East German uranium industries on local politics and on societies, particularly in the decade or so after the end of the Second World War. The Erzgebirge - the Ore Mountains - on the border of Czechoslovakia and East Germany of the time, was the oldest uranium mine in the world, whose important resources were badly needed for Stalin's atomic bomb. An introduction discusses the silver-mining industries of the Erzgebirge region, the history of experiments in physics on the instability of matter, and on the increasing demand for uranium beginning in the middle of the 19th century. The book outlines the fate of this mining region in the Cold War period, including the various political pressures and medical problems its inhabitants came under. The two industries are compared at the peak of their production and at the top of their strategic importance for Stalin. It helps the reader see the origins of the Cold War in a different perspective.
Publisher: Central European University Press
ISBN: 9789639776005
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324
Book Description
Examines the impact of the Czechoslovak and East German uranium industries on local politics and on societies, particularly in the decade or so after the end of the Second World War. The Erzgebirge - the Ore Mountains - on the border of Czechoslovakia and East Germany of the time, was the oldest uranium mine in the world, whose important resources were badly needed for Stalin's atomic bomb. An introduction discusses the silver-mining industries of the Erzgebirge region, the history of experiments in physics on the instability of matter, and on the increasing demand for uranium beginning in the middle of the 19th century. The book outlines the fate of this mining region in the Cold War period, including the various political pressures and medical problems its inhabitants came under. The two industries are compared at the peak of their production and at the top of their strategic importance for Stalin. It helps the reader see the origins of the Cold War in a different perspective.
Operation Crossroads
Author: Jonathan M. Weisgall
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 488
Book Description
Weisgall (law, Georgetown U.) is the legal counsel for the people of Bikini and provides the first non-government account of the two atomic bomb tests on the Pacific island in 1946. He thinks that they were not a good idea, and argues that the government knew that at the time. He was also the executive producer of the film Radio Bikini. Includes lots of photographs. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 488
Book Description
Weisgall (law, Georgetown U.) is the legal counsel for the people of Bikini and provides the first non-government account of the two atomic bomb tests on the Pacific island in 1946. He thinks that they were not a good idea, and argues that the government knew that at the time. He was also the executive producer of the film Radio Bikini. Includes lots of photographs. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Nation
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
The Iraq War Reader
Author: Christopher Cerf
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743255925
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 738
Book Description
Despite the torrent of coverage devoted to war with Iraq, woefully little attention has been paid to the history of the region, the policies that led to the conflict, and the daunting challenges that will confront America and the Middle East once the immediate crisis has ended. In this collection, Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, coeditors of the acclaimed Gulf War Reader, have assembled essays and documents that present an eminently readable, up-to-the-moment guide -- from every imaginable perspective -- to the continuing crisis in the Gulf and Middle East. Here, in analysis and commentary from some of the world's leading writers and opinion makers -- and in the words of the key participants themselves -- is the engrossing saga of how oil economics, power politics, dreams of empire, nationalist yearnings, and religious fanaticism -- not to mention naked aggression, betrayal, and tragic miscalculation -- have conspired to bring us to the fateful collision of the West and the Arab world over Iraq. Contributors include: Fouad Ajami George W. Bush Richard Butler John le Carré Noam Chomsky Ann Coulter Thomas Friedman Al Gore Seymour Hersh Christopher Hitchens Arianna Huffington Saddam Hussein Terry Jones Robert Kagan Charles Krauthammer William Kristol Nicholas Lemann Kanan Makiya Kevin Phillips Kenneth Pollack Colin Powell Condoleezza Rice Arundhati Roy Edward Said William Safire Jonathan Schell Susan Sontag George Will
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743255925
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 738
Book Description
Despite the torrent of coverage devoted to war with Iraq, woefully little attention has been paid to the history of the region, the policies that led to the conflict, and the daunting challenges that will confront America and the Middle East once the immediate crisis has ended. In this collection, Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, coeditors of the acclaimed Gulf War Reader, have assembled essays and documents that present an eminently readable, up-to-the-moment guide -- from every imaginable perspective -- to the continuing crisis in the Gulf and Middle East. Here, in analysis and commentary from some of the world's leading writers and opinion makers -- and in the words of the key participants themselves -- is the engrossing saga of how oil economics, power politics, dreams of empire, nationalist yearnings, and religious fanaticism -- not to mention naked aggression, betrayal, and tragic miscalculation -- have conspired to bring us to the fateful collision of the West and the Arab world over Iraq. Contributors include: Fouad Ajami George W. Bush Richard Butler John le Carré Noam Chomsky Ann Coulter Thomas Friedman Al Gore Seymour Hersh Christopher Hitchens Arianna Huffington Saddam Hussein Terry Jones Robert Kagan Charles Krauthammer William Kristol Nicholas Lemann Kanan Makiya Kevin Phillips Kenneth Pollack Colin Powell Condoleezza Rice Arundhati Roy Edward Said William Safire Jonathan Schell Susan Sontag George Will
Pulp Empire
Author: Paul S. Hirsch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226829464
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Winner of the Popular Culture Association's Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Book in Popular or American Culture In the 1940s and ’50s, comic books were some of the most popular—and most unfiltered—entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages until a 1954 Senate investigation led to a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics—it was simply the most dramatic manifestation of a long, strange relationship between high-level policy makers and a medium that even artists and writers often dismissed as a creative sewer. In Pulp Empire, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official—and clandestine—foreign policy and deflect global critiques of American racism. As Hirsch details, during World War II—and the concurrent golden age of comic books—government agencies worked directly with comic book publishers to stoke hatred for the Axis powers while simultaneously attempting to dispel racial tensions at home. Later, as the Cold War defense industry ballooned—and as comic book sales reached historic heights—the government again turned to the medium, this time trying to win hearts and minds in the decolonizing world through cartoon propaganda. Hirsch’s groundbreaking research weaves together a wealth of previously classified material, including secret wartime records, official legislative documents, and caches of personal papers. His book explores the uneasy contradiction of how comics were both vital expressions of American freedom and unsettling glimpses into the national id—scourged and repressed on the one hand and deployed as official propaganda on the other. Pulp Empire is a riveting illumination of underexplored chapters in the histories of comic books, foreign policy, and race.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226829464
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Winner of the Popular Culture Association's Ray and Pat Browne Award for Best Book in Popular or American Culture In the 1940s and ’50s, comic books were some of the most popular—and most unfiltered—entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages until a 1954 Senate investigation led to a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics—it was simply the most dramatic manifestation of a long, strange relationship between high-level policy makers and a medium that even artists and writers often dismissed as a creative sewer. In Pulp Empire, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official—and clandestine—foreign policy and deflect global critiques of American racism. As Hirsch details, during World War II—and the concurrent golden age of comic books—government agencies worked directly with comic book publishers to stoke hatred for the Axis powers while simultaneously attempting to dispel racial tensions at home. Later, as the Cold War defense industry ballooned—and as comic book sales reached historic heights—the government again turned to the medium, this time trying to win hearts and minds in the decolonizing world through cartoon propaganda. Hirsch’s groundbreaking research weaves together a wealth of previously classified material, including secret wartime records, official legislative documents, and caches of personal papers. His book explores the uneasy contradiction of how comics were both vital expressions of American freedom and unsettling glimpses into the national id—scourged and repressed on the one hand and deployed as official propaganda on the other. Pulp Empire is a riveting illumination of underexplored chapters in the histories of comic books, foreign policy, and race.