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The Nuclear Borderlands
This chapter is in the book The Nuclear Borderlands
NOTESCHAPTER 1: THE ENLIGHTENED EARTH1. While the first chain reaction was achieved in Chicago in 1942 (techni-cally launching the nuclear age), the atomic bomb (designed and tested inNew Mexico) was the first nuclear technology to enter popular consciousnessin the United States. After 1945, Los Alamos was widely recognized as theworld leader in the development of nuclear technologies.2. On the history of the Manhattan Project, see Rhodes (1986); on the his-tory of the Trinity test, see Szasz (1984), Lansing (1965), and Kunetka(1979). For technical histories of the Trinity test, see Hawkins (1983) andHoddeson et al. (1993); for a hyperbolic account of the Trinity explosion bythe only journalist allowed to witness the test, see Laurence (1946).3. Indeed, the “unthinkability” of the nuclear age has been a growth liter-ature; as a follow-up to his programmatic 1960 book On ThermonuclearWar(Princeton: Princeton University Press), nuclear strategist Herman Kahnwrote Thinking About the Unthinkable(New York: Horizon Press) in 1962,and Thinking about the Unthinkable in the 1980s(New York: Simon andSchuster) in 1984. Among many other offerings in this, and counterdiscur-sive, veins, see Brian Easlea’s Fathering The Unthinkable: Masculinity, Sci-entists, and the Arms Race(London: Pluto Press, 1983), and Jeff Smith’sUnthinking the Unthinkable: Nuclear Weapons and Western Culture(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). Few Cold War conversationsabout nuclear war are without at least a nod to its “unthinkability.” Forexample, the first governmental text to describe for the public what a nuclearwar might be like (entitled The Effects of Nuclear War) begins with a dis-claimer stating that “the mind recoils from the effort to foresee the details ofsuch a calamity.” Its first finding is that “the effects of a nuclear war thatcannot be calculated are at least as important as those for which calculationsare attempted. Moreover, even these limited calculations are subject to verylarge uncertainties” (OTA 1979: 3). The report then goes on to describe inminute detail a nuclear war under several different scenarios, imagining theeffects on bodies, the environment, the economy, and the global political sit-uation. We might, thus, think about the evocation of the “unthinkability” ofnuclear war as a call to discourse, an opening up of a psychosocial space inwhich other kinds of national-cultural work (besides nuclear war planning)are undertaken.4. Here we see a prohibition on thought that produces a proliferation ofdiscourse similar to what Michel Foucault revealed in his analysis of Victo-rian sexuality (1978). This is particularly evidenced in the new languages ofthe nuclear age, produced despite the bomb’s “unthinkability.” See Cohn(1987) for an analysis of how the technostrategic language of “defense
© 2020 Princeton University Press, Princeton

NOTESCHAPTER 1: THE ENLIGHTENED EARTH1. While the first chain reaction was achieved in Chicago in 1942 (techni-cally launching the nuclear age), the atomic bomb (designed and tested inNew Mexico) was the first nuclear technology to enter popular consciousnessin the United States. After 1945, Los Alamos was widely recognized as theworld leader in the development of nuclear technologies.2. On the history of the Manhattan Project, see Rhodes (1986); on the his-tory of the Trinity test, see Szasz (1984), Lansing (1965), and Kunetka(1979). For technical histories of the Trinity test, see Hawkins (1983) andHoddeson et al. (1993); for a hyperbolic account of the Trinity explosion bythe only journalist allowed to witness the test, see Laurence (1946).3. Indeed, the “unthinkability” of the nuclear age has been a growth liter-ature; as a follow-up to his programmatic 1960 book On ThermonuclearWar(Princeton: Princeton University Press), nuclear strategist Herman Kahnwrote Thinking About the Unthinkable(New York: Horizon Press) in 1962,and Thinking about the Unthinkable in the 1980s(New York: Simon andSchuster) in 1984. Among many other offerings in this, and counterdiscur-sive, veins, see Brian Easlea’s Fathering The Unthinkable: Masculinity, Sci-entists, and the Arms Race(London: Pluto Press, 1983), and Jeff Smith’sUnthinking the Unthinkable: Nuclear Weapons and Western Culture(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989). Few Cold War conversationsabout nuclear war are without at least a nod to its “unthinkability.” Forexample, the first governmental text to describe for the public what a nuclearwar might be like (entitled The Effects of Nuclear War) begins with a dis-claimer stating that “the mind recoils from the effort to foresee the details ofsuch a calamity.” Its first finding is that “the effects of a nuclear war thatcannot be calculated are at least as important as those for which calculationsare attempted. Moreover, even these limited calculations are subject to verylarge uncertainties” (OTA 1979: 3). The report then goes on to describe inminute detail a nuclear war under several different scenarios, imagining theeffects on bodies, the environment, the economy, and the global political sit-uation. We might, thus, think about the evocation of the “unthinkability” ofnuclear war as a call to discourse, an opening up of a psychosocial space inwhich other kinds of national-cultural work (besides nuclear war planning)are undertaken.4. Here we see a prohibition on thought that produces a proliferation ofdiscourse similar to what Michel Foucault revealed in his analysis of Victo-rian sexuality (1978). This is particularly evidenced in the new languages ofthe nuclear age, produced despite the bomb’s “unthinkability.” See Cohn(1987) for an analysis of how the technostrategic language of “defense
© 2020 Princeton University Press, Princeton

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. TABLE OF CONTENTS v
  3. PREFACE TO THE 2020 EDITION vii
  4. REFERENCES xvii
  5. NOTES xviii
  6. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix
  7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxiii
  8. 1. The Enlightened Earth 1
  9. Part I. Everyday Life in the Plutonium Economy
  10. 2. Nuclear Technoaesthetics: The Sensory Politics of the Bomb in Los Alamos 43
  11. 3. Econationalisms: First Nations in the Plutonium Economy 99
  12. 4. Radioactive Nation-building in Northern New Mexico: A Nuclear Maquiladora? 160
  13. 5. Backtalking to the National Fetish: The Rise of Antinuclear Activism in Santa Fe 215
  14. Part II. National Insecurities
  15. 6. Lie Detectors: On Secrets and Hypersecurity in Los Alamos 263
  16. 7. Mutant Ecologies: Radioactive Life in Post–Cold War New Mexico 289
  17. 8. Epilogue: The Nuclear Borderlands 328
  18. NOTES 339
  19. REFERENCES 375
  20. INDEX 413
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691194288-014

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. TABLE OF CONTENTS v
  3. PREFACE TO THE 2020 EDITION vii
  4. REFERENCES xvii
  5. NOTES xviii
  6. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix
  7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxiii
  8. 1. The Enlightened Earth 1
  9. Part I. Everyday Life in the Plutonium Economy
  10. 2. Nuclear Technoaesthetics: The Sensory Politics of the Bomb in Los Alamos 43
  11. 3. Econationalisms: First Nations in the Plutonium Economy 99
  12. 4. Radioactive Nation-building in Northern New Mexico: A Nuclear Maquiladora? 160
  13. 5. Backtalking to the National Fetish: The Rise of Antinuclear Activism in Santa Fe 215
  14. Part II. National Insecurities
  15. 6. Lie Detectors: On Secrets and Hypersecurity in Los Alamos 263
  16. 7. Mutant Ecologies: Radioactive Life in Post–Cold War New Mexico 289
  17. 8. Epilogue: The Nuclear Borderlands 328
  18. NOTES 339
  19. REFERENCES 375
  20. INDEX 413
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