Radiation Nation

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.

Discusses the hidden dangers and health concerns of electromagnetic frequency radiation that is emitted from technological devices that we use everyday and offers practical advice on how to protect yourself and your loved ones from harm.

This book reevaluates the health risks of ionizing radiation in light of data that have become available since the 1980 report on this subject was published. The data include new, much more reliable dose estimates for the A-bomb survivors, the results of an additional 14 years of follow-up of the survivors for cancer mortality, recent results of follow-up studies of persons irradiated for medical purposes, and results of relevant experiments with laboratory animals and cultured cells. It analyzes the data in terms of risk estimates for specific organs in relation to dose and time after exposure, and compares radiation effects between Japanese and Western populations.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 From the bestselling author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge comes the dramatic conclusion of how conservatism took control of American political power. Over two decades, Rick Perlstein has published three definitive works about the emerging dominance of conservatism in modern American politics. With the saga’s final installment, he has delivered yet another stunning literary and historical achievement. In late 1976, Ronald Reagan was dismissed as a man without a political future: defeated in his nomination bid against a sitting president of his own party, blamed for President Gerald Ford’s defeat, too old to make another run. His comeback was fueled by an extraordinary confluence: fundamentalist preachers and former segregationists reinventing themselves as militant crusaders against gay rights and feminism; business executives uniting against regulation in an era of economic decline; a cadre of secretive “New Right” organizers deploying state-of-the-art technology, bending political norms to the breaking point—and Reagan’s own unbending optimism, his ability to convey unshakable confidence in America as the world’s “shining city on a hill.” Meanwhile, a civil war broke out in the Democratic party. When President Jimmy Carter called Americans to a new ethic of austerity, Senator Ted Kennedy reacted with horror, challenging him for reelection. Carter’s Oval Office tenure was further imperiled by the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, near-catastrophe at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant, aviation accidents, serial killers on the loose, and endless gas lines. Backed by a reenergized conservative Republican base, Reagan ran on the campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”—and prevailed. Reaganland is the story of how that happened, tracing conservatives’ cutthroat strategies to gain power and explaining why they endure four decades later.

In the United States there are several thousand devices containing high-activity radiation sources licensed for use in areas ranging from medical uses such as cancer therapy to safety uses such as testing of structures and industrial equipment. Those radiation sources are licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state agencies. Concerns have been raised about the safety and security of the radiation sources, particularly amid fears that they could be used to create dirty bombs, or radiological dispersal device (RDD). In response to a request from Congress, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked the National Research Council to conduct a study to review the uses of high-risk radiation sources and the feasibility of replacing them with lower risk alternatives. The study concludes that the U.S. government should consider factors such as potential economic consequences of misuse of the radiation sources into its assessments of risk. Although the committee found that replacements of most sources are possible, it is not economically feasible in some cases. The committee recommends that the U.S. government take steps to in the near term to replace radioactive cesium chloride radiation sources, a potential "dirty bomb" ingredient used in some medical and research equipment, with lower-risk alternatives. The committee further recommends that longer term efforts be undertaken to replace other sources. The book presents a number of options for making those replacements.

How it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or “radiance,” which also means “radiation” in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. In the aftermath of World War II, as France sought a distinctive role for itself in the modern, postcolonial world, the nation and its leaders enthusiastically embraced large technological projects in general and nuclear power in particular. The Radiance of France asks how it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or “radiance,” which also means “radiation” in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. To answer this question, Gabrielle Hecht has forged an innovative combination of technology studies and cultural and political history in a book that, as Michel Callon writes in the new foreword to this edition, “not only sheds new light on the role of technology in the construction of national identities” but is also “a seminal contribution to the history of contemporary France.” Proposing the concept of technopolitical regime as a way to analyze the social, political, cultural, and technological dynamics among engineering elites, unionized workers, and rural communities, Hecht shows how the history of France's first generation of nuclear reactors is also a history of the multiple meanings of nationalism, from the postwar period (and France's desire for post-Vichy redemption) to 1969 and the adoption of a “Frenchified” American design. This paperback edition of Hecht's groundbreaking book includes both Callon's foreword and an afterword by the author in which she brings the story up to date, and reflects on such recent developments as the 2007 French presidential election, the promotion of nuclear power as the solution to climate change, and France's aggressive exporting of nuclear technology.

Keys, wallet, cell phone . . . ready to go! Cell phones have become ubiquitous fixtures of twenty-first-century life—suctioned to our ears and stuck in our pockets. Yet, we’ve all heard whispers that these essential little devices give you brain cancer. Many of us are left wondering, as Maureen Dowd recently asked in the New York Times, “Are cells the new cigarettes?” Overpowered brings readers, in accessible and fascinating prose, through the science, indicating biological effects resulting from low, non-thermal levels of non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation (levels considered safe by regulatory agencies), coming not only from cell phones, but many other devices we use in our homes and offices every day. Dr. Blank arms us with the information we need to lobby government and industry to keep ourselves and our families safe.