Radiation Nation: Three Mile Island and the Political Transformation of the 1970s
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.71 (917 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B071746SGL |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 148 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-09-24 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Centered on Three Mile Island, it is actually a chronicle of postwar America, touching on everything from atomic-age anxieties, to declining faith in expertise, to the long-grinding pessimism of the 'anthropocene.' It is, in short, brilliant, among the best works of history I have read in years. This is an epic book, speaking to grand stakes. (Jeremy Varon, the New School)
. Natasha Zaretsky is associate professor of history at Southern Illinois University. She is the author of No Direction Home: The American Family and the Fear of National Decline, 1968-1980 (2007)
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. 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. On March 28, 1979, the worst nuclear reactor accident in U.S. 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 first cultural history of the accident, Radiation Nation reveals the surprising ecological dimensions of post-Vietnam conserv