Civilization came crashing down. Billions died. A new Dark Age has begun. The descendants of the apocalypse's survivors scavenge the remnants of the Before Times, struggling to build a new life amidst the ruins of the old. In a savage world where the strong ravage and exploit the weak, the survivors' settlements are oases, connected only by convoys of armed and armoured vehicles that run the gauntlet of raiders... and worse. Though the threats of chemical and biological agents and radiation have all but faded, their taint lingers on in every mutant born to man and beast. This is the world of Atomic Highway. Atomic Highway is a complete roleplaying game. All you need to play it is this book, a few friends, paper and pencils, and a few ordinary dice.
A subarctic mine on the far eastern shores of Great Bear Lake provided Canadian uranium for the bombs detonated over Japan in August 1945. However, a complete history of Canada's involvement in the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb has been thwarted by restrictions on classified documents.
Mixing first-person narrative of his travels around the U.S. in search of Cold War sites and objects with an extensive accumulation of historical facts, the author explores Cold War America's obsession with protecting itself from the nuclear threat through various forms of architectural structures, such as missile silos, fallout shelters, nuclear waste dumps, monoliths like the windowless PacBell building in Los Angeles, and countless motels and diners named "Atomic."
Looking beyond the Highway is an examination of road history and roadside attractions specific to the South. Focused in part on numerous aspects of thematerial culture landscape of the Dixie Highway, the essays consider the politics of roadbuilding, roadside entertainment, the buildings and businesses one might encounter along the road, and regional adaptations to the needs and desires of northern tourists. Following the Dixie Highway from southern Illinois to Florida with sidetrips down other southern roads, the essays cover a wide variety of subjects, many of which will resonate with anyone who has ever lived in or vacationed in the South: Harrison Mayes's “Get Right With God” signs; the park-and-pray craze of outdoor drive-in church services; the rise and demise of brick highways; the fierce political battle over the route of the Dixie Highway; beach music and the evolution of motel architecture in Myrtle Beach; Florida's early tourist towers; and the commercial development of Tennessee caves as tourist attractions. Covering a landscape that includes Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Indiana, Virginia, Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and Illinois, the anthology shows that there was and still is a distinctive southern culture and how roads have influenced that culture. As lively as they are diverse, thearticles provide a solid background for understanding roadside ephemera that have disappeared or are quickly disappearing. Ranging from the serious to the light-hearted and including descriptions of American road and roadside icons to kitsch, the book will appeal to anyone with an interest in road history and roadside architecture.
