The Atomic West (Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography)

About this book

The Manhattan Projectthe World War II race to produce an atomic bombtransformed the entire country in myriad ways but it did not affect each region equally. Acting on an enduring perception of the American West as an empty place the U.S. government located a disproportionate number of nuclear facilitiesparticularly the ones most likely to spread pollutionin western states. The Manhattan Project manufactured plutonium at Hanford Washington; designed and assembled bombs at Los Alamos New Mexico; and detonated the worlds first atomic bomb at Alamagordo New Mexico on June 16 1945. In the years that followed the war the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission selected additional western sites for its work. Many westerners initially welcomed the atom. Like federal officials they too regarded their region as empty or underdeveloped. Facilities to make test and base atomic weapons sites to store nuclear waste and even nuclear power plants were regarded as assets. By the 1960s and 1970s however regional attitudes began to change. At a variety of locales ranging from Eskimo Alaska to Mormon Utah westerners devoted themselves to resisting the atom and its effects on their environments and communities. Just as the atomic age had dawned in the American West so its artificial sun began to set there. The Atomic West brings together contributions from several disciplines to explore the impact on the West of the development of atomic power from wartime secrecy and initial postwar enthusiasm to public doubts and protest in the 1970s and 1980s. An impressive example of the benefits of interdisciplinary studies on complex topics The Atomic West advances our understanding of both regional history and the history of science and does so with human communities as a significant focal point. The book will be of special interest to students and experts on the American West environmental history and the history of science and technology.