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Book ID: CBB105394498

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

Hamblin, Jacob Darwin (Author)

Oxford University Press
Publication date: 2021
Language: English

ISBN: 9780197526903

Publication Date: 2021
Physical Details: 328

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International relations Technology and society Nuclear power; atomic energy Nuclear weapons; atomic weapons Atomic, nuclear, and particle physics 21st century 20th century, late Iran India Pakistan Israel Ghana Japan United States Eisenhower, Dwight David

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

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