Book
ID: CBB416609671

The Atomic Archipelago: US Nuclear Submarines and Technopolitics of Risk in Cold War Italy (2022)

unapi
Risk Technology and politics Submarines Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons Cold War 21st century 20th century, late Italy

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.

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB416609671/

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Authors & Contributors
Michael W. Hankins
Susan Colbourn
David Bath
Elisabeth Roehrlich
Lindsay Caplan
Maar, Henry Richard, III
Journals
History and Technology
Diplomatic History
Public Understanding of Science
Llull: Revista de la Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas
Contemporary European History
Publishers
Cornell University Press
Springer Nature
Yale University Press
University of Minnesota Press
Stanford University Press
Penguin
Concepts
Cold War
Technology and politics
Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons
Technology and war; technology and the military
Foreign relations; diplomacy
Nuclear power; atomic energy
People
Boyd, John Richard
Nixon, Richard M.
Time Periods
20th century, late
21st century
Places
United States
Soviet Union
Great Britain
Mississippi (U.S.)
South Africa
Italy
Institutions
United States Air Force (USAF)
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; Partial Test Ban Treaty; Limited Test Ban Treaty (1963)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
United States. Department of Defense
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
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