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Author: Alex Wellerstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602038X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558
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Book Description
"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--
Author: Angela N. H. Creager
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601794X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 506
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Book Description
After World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began mass-producing radioisotopes, sending out nearly 64,000 shipments of radioactive materials to scientists and physicians by 1955. Even as the atomic bomb became the focus of Cold War anxiety, radioisotopes represented the government’s efforts to harness the power of the atom for peace—advancing medicine, domestic energy, and foreign relations. In Life Atomic, Angela N. H. Creager tells the story of how these radioisotopes, which were simultaneously scientific tools and political icons, transformed biomedicine and ecology. Government-produced radioisotopes provided physicians with new tools for diagnosis and therapy, specifically cancer therapy, and enabled biologists to trace molecular transformations. Yet the government’s attempt to present radioisotopes as marvelous dividends of the atomic age was undercut in the 1950s by the fallout debates, as scientists and citizens recognized the hazards of low-level radiation. Creager reveals that growing consciousness of the danger of radioactivity did not reduce the demand for radioisotopes at hospitals and laboratories, but it did change their popular representation from a therapeutic agent to an environmental poison. She then demonstrates how, by the late twentieth century, public fear of radioactivity overshadowed any appreciation of the positive consequences of the AEC’s provision of radioisotopes for research and medicine.
Author: Alex Wellerstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602038X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558
Get Book Here
Book Description
"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--
Author: Jim Mahaffey
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1480447749
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 664
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Book Description
A “delightfully astute” and “entertaining” history of the mishaps and meltdowns that have marked the path of scientific progress (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Radiation: What could go wrong? In short, plenty. From Marie Curie carrying around a vial of radium salt because she liked the pretty blue glow to the large-scale disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, dating back to the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters. In this lively book, long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy James Mahaffey looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns. Every incident, while taking its toll, has led to new understanding of the mighty atom—and the fascinating frontier of science that still holds both incredible risk and great promise.
Author: Bruce W. Hevly
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295800623
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302
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Book Description
The Manhattan Project—the World War II race to produce an atomic bomb—transformed the entire country in myriad ways, but it did not affect each region equally. Acting on an enduring perception of the American West as an “empty” place, the U.S. government located a disproportionate number of nuclear facilities—particularly the ones most likely to spread pollution—in western states. The Manhattan Project manufactured plutonium at Hanford, Washington; designed and assembled bombs at Los Alamos, New Mexico; and detonated the world’s first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, New Mexico, on June 16, 1945. In the years that followed the war, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission selected additional western sites for its work. Many westerners initially welcomed the atom. Like federal officials, they, too, regarded their region as “empty,” or underdeveloped. Facilities to make, test, and base atomic weapons, sites to store nuclear waste, and even nuclear power plants were regarded as assets. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, regional attitudes began to change. At a variety of locales, ranging from Eskimo Alaska to Mormon Utah, westerners devoted themselves to resisting the atom and its effects on their environments and communities. Just as the atomic age had dawned in the American West, so its artificial sun began to set there. The Atomic West brings together contributions from several disciplines to explore the impact on the West of the development of atomic power from wartime secrecy and initial postwar enthusiasm to public doubts and protest in the 1970s and 1980s. An impressive example of the benefits of interdisciplinary studies on complex topics, The Atomic West advances our understanding of both regional history and the history of science, and does so with human communities as a significant focal point. The book will be of special interest to students and experts on the American West, environmental history, and the history of science and technology.
Author: John M. Findlay
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295802987
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
Outstanding Title by Choice Magazine On the banks of the Pacific Northwest’s greatest river lies the Hanford nuclear reservation, an industrial site that appears to be at odds with the surrounding vineyards and desert. The 586-square-mile compound on the Columbia River is known both for its origins as part of the Manhattan Project, which made the first atomic bombs, and for the monumental effort now under way to clean up forty-five years of waste from manufacturing plutonium for nuclear weapons. Hanford routinely makes the news, as scientists, litigants, administrators, and politicians argue over its past and its future. It is easy to think about Hanford as an expression of federal power, a place apart from humanity and nature, but that view distorts its history. Atomic Frontier Days looks through a wider lens, telling a complex story of production, community building, politics, and environmental sensibilities. In brilliantly structured parallel stories, the authors bridge the divisions that accompany Hanford’s headlines and offer perspective on today’s controversies. Influenced as much by regional culture, economics, and politics as by war, diplomacy, and environmentalism, Hanford and the Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick illuminate the history of the modern American West.
Author: Susan Colbourn
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774864001
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Since the first atomic weapon was detonated in 1945, Canadians have debated not only the role of nuclear power in their uranium-rich land but also their country’s role in a nuclear world. The Nuclear North investigates critical questions in these ongoing debates. Should Canada belong to international alliances that depend on the threat of using nuclear weapons for their own security? Should Canadian-produced nuclear technologies be exported to potential proliferators? Does the country’s championing of arms control and disarmament on the global stage matter? What about the domestic costs of nuclear technologies and atomic research, including their impact on local communities and the environment? The contributors to this important collection consider how the atomic age has shaped Canadian policies at home and abroad. Their incisive assessment of the country’s nuclear history engages with much larger debates about national identity, Canadian foreign policy contradictions during the Cold War, and Canada’s place in the international order.
Author: Denise Kiernan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451617534
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416
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Book Description
This is the story of the young women of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, who unwittingly played a crucial role in one of the most significant moments in U.S. history. The Tennessee town of Oak Ridge was created from scratch in 1942. One of the Manhattan Project's secret cities. All knew something big was happening at Oak Ridge, but few could piece together the true nature of their work until the bomb "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan, and the secret was out. The reverberations from their work there, work they did not fully understand at the time, are still being felt today.
Author: Henry A. Boorse
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 490
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Book Description
Traces the history of the atom through detailed biographies of its famous and lesser-known proponets.
Author: Francis J. Gavin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231
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Book Description
We are at a critical juncture in world politics. Nuclear strategy and policy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda, and issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the global zero movement are generating sharp debate. The historical origins of our contemporary nuclear world are deeply consequential for contemporary policy, but it is crucial that decisions are made on the basis of fact rather than myth and misapprehension. In Nuclear Statecraft, Francis J. Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution. On the basis of recently declassified documents, Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. In case after case, he finds that we know far less than we think we do about our nuclear history. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers. Gavin's rigorous historical work not only tells us what happened in the past but also offers a powerful tool to explain how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Nuclear Statecraft provides a solid foundation for future policymaking.
Author: Jim Mangi
Publisher: Frontline Books
ISBN: 1399009842
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
While German and Japanese scientists also labored unsuccessfully to create an atomic bomb, by the summer of 1945, the American-led team was ready to test its first weapon. As the clock ticked down to the detonation time of 05.30 hours on 16 July 1945, the nervous team of technicians and scientists waited ten miles away from ‘Ground Zero’ deep in the New Mexico desert. No one knew how powerful the explosion would be or whether even at such a distance they would be safe from the blast. Even so, some chose to observe the detonation from a point four miles nearer at the control bunker; but then no one was even sure that the bomb would work. What if that is actually what happened? Under schedule pressure from the White House, the scientists assembled the device in part with tape and tissue paper, knowing some components were flawed. These are verifiable facts. It means that, as many of those who gathered in the New Mexico desert feared at the time, the bomb might not have worked during that first test. In The First Atomic Bomb, Jim Mangi explores what might happened in the event that the world’s first atomic bomb had not been ready for use when it was. How would this have affected the end of the war in the Pacific, and indeed the Second World War as a whole? Would Emperor Hirohito’s armed forces have battled on? When might Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, at the controls of his Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay have then made his historic flight over Hiroshima – and would that city even have remained the target? How would Stalin and the Soviets have reacted to such developments, and how would this have played out in the post-war world?
