New Release
Downwind of the Atomic State
Between 1951-1962 the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) conducted more than 100 open-air detonations in Nevada dispersing radioactive fallout over the communities downwind and, indeed, much of the country. Of particular concern is the failure of AEC officials to fully appreciate the contingencies of releasing radionuclides into a fluid, intransient, and vibrant nonhuman realm. This points to the liabilities of not simply organizational and institutional dynamics but prevailing ontological assumptions of modernity. In this regard, atmospheric testing was an ontological wake-up call. Nonhuman entities, processes, and things act and, at times, react to human provocation. And too often powerful actors seek to manipulate and control nature without anticipating the unintended side effects imposed on others, particularly when things go wrong.
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Reviews
“Mastery of nature has a dark side―spiraling unintended and unwanted consequences. James C. Rice’s history of radioactive fallout from atom bomb testing is a striking demonstration that it is almost easier to build weapons of mass destruction than to contain―or even recognize and admit―their grim penumbra. An object lesson for the Anthropocene.” ― Andrew Pickering, author of The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future
“With this gripping account of poisoned sheep, radioactive milk, and desert towns blanketed in nuclear fallout, Rice brilliantly reveals the technological hubris and governmental arrogance behind the post-war era of open-air atomic bomb testing. Based on new research and cutting-edge theory, Downwind of the Atomic State highlights the perils of underestimating a vibrant material world that can often be more complex and treacherous than we imagine. A powerful cautionary tale for our own day.” ― Timothy James LeCain, author of The Matter of History: How Things Create the Past
“Downwind of the Atomic State charts the relationship between human and non-human participants in the ongoing burdening of the Great Basin ecosystem with fallout radionuclides throughout the ‘open-air’ testing era. Rice tracks the tensions between the fallout models of the test site managers and the reality of the intractable uptake of fallout by the ecosystem, weaving a powerful narrative from test series to test series, and ultimately to the court cases that followed.” ― Robert A. Jacobs, author of Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha