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On March 28, 1979, the worst accident in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States occurred at Three Mile Island. For five days, the citizens of central Pennsylvania and the entire world, amid growing alarm, followed the efforts of authorities to prevent the crippled plant from spewing dangerous quantities of radiation into the environment. This book is the first comprehensive, moment-by-moment account of the causes, context, and consequences of the Three Mile Island crisis. Walker captures the high human drama surrounding the accident, sets it in the context of the heated debate over nuclear power in the seventies, and analyzes the social, technical, and political issues it raised. He also looks at the aftermath of the accident on the surrounding area, including studies of its long-term health effects on the population.--From publisher description.
On March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear reactor accident in U.S. history occurred at the Three Mile Island power plant in Central Pennsylvania. Radiation Nation tells the story of what happened that day and in the months and years that followed, as local residents tried to make sense of the emergency. The near-meltdown occurred at a pivotal moment when the New Deal coalition was unraveling, trust in government was eroding, conservatives were consolidating their power, and the political left was becoming marginalized. Using the accident to explore this turning point, Natasha Zaretsky provides a fresh interpretation of the era by disclosing how atomic and ecological imaginaries shaped the conservative ascendancy. Drawing on the testimony of the men and women who lived in the shadow of the reactor, Radiation Nation shows that the region's citizens, especially its mothers, grew convinced that they had sustained radiological injuries that threatened their reproductive futures. Taking inspiration from the antiwar, environmental, and feminist movements, women at Three Mile Island crafted a homegrown ecological politics that wove together concerns over radiological threats to the body, the struggle over abortion and reproductive rights, and eroding trust in authority. This politics was shaped above all by what Zaretsky calls "biotic nationalism," a new body-centered nationalism that imagined the nation as a living, mortal being and portrayed sickened Americans as evidence of betrayal. The first cultural history of the accident, Radiation Nation reveals the surprising ecological dimensions of post-Vietnam conservatism while showing how growing anxieties surrounding bodily illness infused the political realignment of the 1970s in ways that blurred any easy distinction between left and right.
In June 1981 a squadron of Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction near Baghdad. Until then, few observers had imagined that one nation might attack another by bombing its reactors. Since then, the strategic debate has had to admit a terrifying new fact: a nation with nuclear power plants on its territory places weapons of potential mass destruction in the hands of its enemies. A major nuclear power station or waste storage reservation bombed as the Iraqi reactor was bombed--that is, with conventional explosives--could contimate thousands of square iles and cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives. Nuclear power plants turn conventionally armed enemies into nuclear enemies and make nuclear hostages of entire populations. In this book, Bennett Ramberg explains clearly, for both the lay reader and the technical community, the vulnerabilities of different sorts of nuclear facilities and lists reasons why they are likely to be destroyed in war. In a case-by-case analysis of countries using or building nuclear power plants, Dr. Ramberg shows that the safety of thousands could depend on such volatile factors as the psychological sensitivity of national leders and the direction of the wind. A combination of engineering changes, civil defense, use of alternative forms of energy, and changes in international law could lessen these risks; but until the danger is recognized, no change is likely. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.