The rise of nuclear fear [electronic resource] / Spencer R. Weart.
Weart, Spencer R., 1942-
2012
QC773 .W44 2012eb
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Title The rise of nuclear fear [electronic resource] / Spencer R. Weart.
Author Weart, Spencer R., 1942-
ISBN 9780674065062 electronic book
0674052331
9780674052338
Publication Details Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2012.
Language English
Description 1 online resource (ix, 367 p.)
Call Number QC773 .W44 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification 621.48
Summary "After a tsunami destroyed the cooling system at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, triggering a meltdown, protesters around the world challenged the use of nuclear power. Germany announced it would close its plants by 2022. Although the ills of fossil fuels are better understood than ever, the threat of climate change has never aroused the same visceral dread or swift action. Spencer Weart dissects this paradox, demonstrating that a powerful web of images surrounding nuclear energy holds us captive, allowing fear, rather than facts, to drive our thinking and public policy. Building on his classic, 'Nuclear Fear', Weart follows nuclear imagery from its origins in the symbolism of medieval alchemy to its appearance in film and fiction. Long before nuclear fission was discovered, fantasies of the destroyed planet, the transforming ray, and the white city of the future took root in the popular imagination. At the turn of the twentieth century when limited facts about radioactivity became known, they produced a blurred picture upon which scientists and the public projected their hopes and fears. These fears were magnified during the Cold War, when mushroom clouds no longer needed to be imagined; they appeared on the evening news. Weart examines nuclear anxiety in sources as diverse as Alain Resnais's film 'Hiroshima Mon Amour', Cormac McCarthy's novel 'The Road', and the television show 'The Simpsons.' Recognizing how much we remain in thrall to these setpieces of the imagination, Weart hopes, will help us resist manipulation from both sides of the nuclear debate."--Back cover.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description Description based on print version record.
Available in Other Form Rise of nuclear fear.
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Radioactive hopes
Radioactive fears
Radium : elixir or poison?
The secret, the master, and the monster
The destroyer of worlds
The news from Hiroshima
National defenses
Atoms for peace
Good and bad atoms
The new blasphemy
Death dust
The imagination of survival
The politics of survival
Seeking shelter
Fail/safe
Reactor promises and poisons
The debate explodes
Energy choices
Civilization or liberation?
Watersheds
The second nuclear age
Deconstructing nuclear weapons
Tyrants and terrorists
The modern arcanum
Artistic transmutations.

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