Book ID: CBB105394498

The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology (2021)

unapi

Hamblin, Jacob Darwin (Author)


Oxford University Press


Publication Date: 2021
Physical Details: 328
Language: English

A groundbreaking narrative of how the United States offered the promise of nuclear technology to the developing world and its gamble that other nations would use it for peaceful purposes. After the Second World War, the United States offered a new kind of atom that differed from the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This atom would cure diseases, produce new foods, make deserts bloom, and provide abundant energy for all. It was an atom destined for the formerly colonized,recently occupied, and mostly non-white parts of the world that were dubbed the "wretched of the earth" by Frantz Fanon. The "peaceful atom" had so much propaganda potential that President Dwight Eisenhower used it to distract the world from his plan to test even bigger thermonuclear weapons. His scientists said the peaceful atom would quicken the pulse of nature, speeding nations along the path of economic development and helping them to escape the clutches of disease, famine, and energy shortfalls. That promise became one of the most misunderstood political weapons of the twentieth century. It was adopted by every subsequent US president to exert leverage over other nations' weapons programs, tocorner world markets of uranium and thorium, and to secure petroleum supplies. Other countries embraced it, building reactors and training experts. Atomic promises were embedded in Japan's postwar recovery, Ghana's pan-Africanism, Israel's quest for survival, Pakistan's brinksmanship with India, and Iran's pursuit of nuclear independence. As The Wretched Atom shows, promoting civilian atomic energy was an immense gamble, and it was never truly peaceful. American promises ended up exporting violence and peace in equal measure. While the United States promised peace and plenty, it planted the seeds of dependency and set in motion thecreation of today's expanded nuclear club.

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Reviewed By

Review Audra J. Wolfe (2022) Review of "The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 897-898). unapi

Review Jason Krupar (April 2022) Review of "The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology". Technology and Culture (pp. 548-549). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB105394498/

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Authors & Contributors
Rubio-Varas, Maria del Mar
Edward Kaplan
Yuriko Furuhata
Meyer, Jan-Henrik
Markku Lehtonen
Radzinsky, Brian
Concepts
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Nuclear power; atomic energy
Science and society
Technology and society
International relations
Atomic, nuclear, and particle physics
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
Places
United States
Japan
India
Pakistan
Ghana
Russia
Institutions
Ghana Atomic Energy Commission
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