First published in 2006. Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-411) and index.
Contents:
The enlightened earth. The nuclear state of emergency ; Radioactive nation-building ; The nuclear uncanny ; "A multidimensional, nonlinear, complex system" -- Part I: Everyday life in the plutonium economy. Nuclear technoaesthetics : the sensory politics of the bomb in Los Alamos ; Econationalisms : first nations in the plutonium economy ; Radioactive nation-building in northern New Mexico : a nuclear Maquiladora? ; Backtalking to the national fetish : the rise of antinuclear activism in Santa Fe -- Part II: National insecurities. Lie detectors : on secrets and hypersecurity in Los Alamos ; Mutant ecologies : radioactive life in post cold war New Mexico -- 8. Epilogue : The nuclear borderlands.
Summary:
In The Nuclear Borderlands, Joseph Masco offers an in-depth look at the long-term consequences of the Manhattan Project. Masco examines how diverse groups in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico understood and responded to the U.S. nuclear weapons project in the post-Cold War period. He shows that the American focus on potential nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War obscured the broader effects of the nuclear complex on society, and that the atomic bomb produced a new cognitive orientation toward daily life, reconfiguring concepts of time, nature, race, and citizenship. This updated edition includes a brand-new preface by the author discussing current developments in nuclear politics and the scientific impact of the nuclear age on the present epoch of a human-altered climate.--Back cover.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.