Title The atomic archipelago : US nuclear submarines and technopolitics of risk in Cold War Italy / Davide Orsini

Published Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2022]

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Description 1 online resource Series Intersections: histories of environment, science, and technology in the anthropocene Intersections (Pittsburgh, Pa.) Contents Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction: The Atomic Archipelago -- Part I: A Strategic Naval Outpost: History, Identity, and the Military-Industrial Complex -- Chapter 1: Not an American Fleet in Town -- Chapter 2: Becoming Nuclear: Nuclearity and the politics of science in La Maddalena -- Part II: Technopolitics of Risk: Secrecy, Bureaucracy, and the Production of Ignorance -- Chapter 3: Radioecology and the Italian Nuclear Regulatory Regime -- Chapter 4: A Technopolitical Compromise: The Dual System of Radiosurveillance in Italy -- Chapter 5: Italian Bureaucracy and the Production of Ignorance -- Part III: Risk, Accidents, and Political Mobilization -- Chapter 6: Material Semoitics of Risk -- Chapter 7: Scientific Controversies and Political Mobilization after the Hartford Incident -- Conclusion: Natural Histories: Unearthing the Military-Industrial Legacy of La Maddalena -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index Summary In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups - including residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians - to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly preset and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, whereunique social power dynaics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies. -- Dust jacket Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on June 09, 2022) Subject United States. Navy -- Submarine forces. SUBJECT United States. Navy fast Subject Power (Social sciences) -- Italy -- History -- 21st century Power (Social sciences) -- Italy -- History -- 20th century Cold War. Nuclear submarines -- United States -- History -- 21st century Nuclear submarines -- United States -- History -- 20th century Power (Social sciences) Nuclear submarines Military relations Armed Forces -- Submarine forces SUBJECT Italy -- Military relations -- United States United States -- Military relations -- Italy United States -- Relations militaires -- Italy Subject United States Italy Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780822988854 0822988852

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