Title The nuclear borderlands : the Manhattan Project in post-Cold War New Mexico / Joseph Masco

Published Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2006] ©2006

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 425 pages) : illustrations Contents The enlightened earth. The nuclear state of emergency ; Radioactive nation-building ; The nuclear uncanny ; "A multidimensional, nonlinear, complex system" -- Part I: Everyday life in the plutonium economy. Nuclear technoaesthetics : the sensory politics of the bomb in Los Alamos ; Econationalisms : first nations in the plutonium economy ; Radioactive nation-building in northern New Mexico : a nuclear Maquiladora? ; Backtalking to the national fetish : the rise of antinuclear activism in Santa Fe -- Part II: National insecurities. Lie detectors : on secrets and hypersecurity in Los Alamos ; Mutant ecologies : radioactive life in post cold war New Mexico -- 8. Epilogue : The nuclear borderlands Summary The Nuclear Borderlands explores the sociocultural fallout of twentieth-century America's premier technoscientific project--the atomic bomb. Joseph Masco offers the first anthropological study of the long-term consequences of the Manhattan Project for the people that live in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb, and the majority of weapons in the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, were designed. Masco examines how diverse groups--weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, neighboring Pueblo Indian Nations and Nuevomexicano communities, and antinuclear activists--have engaged the U.S. nuclear weapons project in the post-Cold War period, mobilizing to debate and redefine what constitutes "national security." In a pathbreaking ethnographic analysis, Masco argues that the U.S. focus on potential nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War obscured the broader effects of the nuclear complex on American society. The atomic bomb, he demonstrates, is not just the engine of American technoscientific modernity; it has produced a new cognitive orientation toward everyday life, provoking cross-cultural experiences of what Masco calls a "nuclear uncanny." Revealing how the bomb has reconfigured concepts of time, nature, race, and citizenship, the book provides new theoretical perspectives on the origin and logic of U.S. national security culture. The Nuclear Borderlands ultimately assesses the efforts of the nuclear security state to reinvent itself in a post-Cold War world, and in so doing exposes the nuclear logic supporting the twenty-first-century U.S. war on terrorism.--Publisher description Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-411) and index Notes Print version record Subject Manhattan Project (U.S.) -- History Manhattan Project (U.S.) -- Social aspects Manhattan Project (U.S.) Nuclear weapons -- New Mexico -- Testing Nuclear weapons industry -- Social aspects TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING -- Military Science. HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX) Nuclear weapons -- Testing Social aspects Manhattan-Projekt Kärnvapen. Kalla kriget. nuclear weapons -- nuclear testing -- nuclear explosions -- scientists -- plutonium -- historical presentation -- Los Alamos -- New Mexico -- USA. Cold War -- national security. New Mexico New Mexico Förenta staterna -- New Mexico -- Los Alamos. Genre/Form Electronic books History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781400849680 1400849683 9780691194288 0691194289 0691120765 9780691120768 0691120773 9780691120775

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