Book ID: CBB347886249

Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis (2020)

unapi

Higuchi, Toshihiro (Author)


Stanford University Press


Publication Date: 2020
Physical Details: 328
Language: English

Political Fallout is the story of one of the first human-driven, truly global environmental crises―radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War―and the international response. Beginning in 1945, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, scattering a massive amount of radioactivity across the globe. The scale of contamination was so vast, and radioactive decay so slow, that the cumulative effect on humans and the environment is still difficult to fully comprehend. The international debate over nuclear fallout turned global radioactive contamination into an environmental issue, eventually leading the nuclear superpowers to sign the landmark Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) in 1963. Bringing together environmental history and Cold War history, Toshihiro Higuchi argues that the PTBT, originally proposed as an arms control measure, transformed into a dual-purpose initiative to check the nuclear arms race and radioactive pollution simultaneously. Higuchi draws on sources in English, Russian, and Japanese, considering both the epistemic differences that emerged in different scientific communities in the 1950s and the way that public consciousness around the risks of radioactive fallout influenced policy in turn. Political Fallout addresses the implications of science and policymaking in the Anthropocene―an era in which humans are confronting environmental changes of their own making.

...More
Reviewed By

Review Richard M. Filipink (2023) Review of "Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis". Cold War History (pp. 549-551). unapi

Review Néstor Herran (2023) Review of "Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis". Technology and Culture (pp. 985-986). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB347886249/

Similar Citations

Book Toshihiro Higuchi; (2020)
Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis (/isis/citation/CBB212919708/)

Book Edward Kaplan; (2022)
The End of Victory: Prevailing in the Thermonuclear Age (/isis/citation/CBB085828755/)

Article Masco, Joseph; (2004)
Mutant ecologies: Radioactive life in post-cold war New Mexico (/isis/citation/CBB001180560/)

Book Sarah E. Robey; (2022)
Atomic Americans: Citizens in a Nuclear State (/isis/citation/CBB648725464/)

Book Robert A. Jacobs; (2022)
Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (/isis/citation/CBB596228330/)

Article Aylen, Jonathan; (2015)
First Waltz: Development and Deployment of Blue Danube, Britain's Post-War Atomic Bomb (/isis/citation/CBB001550620/)

Article Barth, Kai-Henrik; (2006)
Catalysts of Change: Scientists as Transnational Arms Control Advocates in the 1980s (/isis/citation/CBB000670751/)

Article Hamblin, Jacob Darwin; Linda M. Richards; (2015)
Beyond the Lucky Dragon: Japanese Scientists and Fallout Discourse in the 1950s (/isis/citation/CBB661347126/)

Article Rothschild, Rachel; (2013)
Environmental Awareness in the Atomic Age: Radioecologists and Nuclear Technology (/isis/citation/CBB001213269/)

Article Masco, Joseph; (2010)
Bad Weather: On Planetary Crisis (/isis/citation/CBB000953623/)

Book Lente, Dick van; (2012)
The Nuclear Age in Popular Media: A Transnational History, 1945--1965 (/isis/citation/CBB001253035/)

Book Turchetti, Simone; (2012)
The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics (/isis/citation/CBB001210044/)

Authors & Contributors
Higuchi, Toshihiro
Masco, Joseph
Aylen, Jonathan
Barth, Kai-Henrik
Bruno, Laura A.
Burke, David Allen
Journals
Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Cultural Anthropology
Environmental History
Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences
International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology
Publishers
Cornell University Press
Ashgate
Louisiana State University Press
Palgrave Macmillan
Stanford University Press
The MIT Press
Concepts
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Nuclear testing
Cold War
Nuclear and radioactive waste
Environmental sciences
Science and politics
People
Pontekorvo, Bruno
Time Periods
20th century, late
20th century
21st century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Great Britain
Japan
India
New Mexico (U.S.)
Institutions
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Atomic Energy Research Establishment (Harwell, England)
United States National Security Council
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment