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When is a Nuclear Test Actually an Attack? Cold War Nuclear Testing and Downwind Fallout Clouds

by Bo

I was unable to attend the SHOT conference in New Orleans last week, and so I sent in my presentation via Vimeo. I'm posting it here for anyone who wants to see it.The title is, "When is a nuclear test actually an attack: Cold War nuclear testing and downwind fallout clouds." I argue that radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations, especially of thermonuclear weapons (H-bombs) was strategized as a means of attacking enemy combatants and populations in imagined #nuclear war scenarios, but when

Tags: Nuclear Testing Fallout Cold War
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The Global Hibakusha and Post-Cold War Nuclear Humanities

by Bo

I was honored to give a lecture to faculty and students at University of Gour Banga in West Bengal, India on 5 July 2021, via Zoom. The lecture was part of the Parley 2021 series hosted by the Department of English. My talk was titled: "The Global Hibakusha and Post-Cold War Nuclear Humanities." It explored the ways that nuclear humanities were practiced during the Cold War, and how it changed and evolved after the Cold War period. I discussed my work on global hibakusha issues as an example of

Tags: Global Hibakusha Nuclear Weapons Cold War History
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Nuclear Colonialism: Selecting the Irradiated, video of online lecture

by Bo

On October 28, 2020, I presented an online lecture at Whitman College in their 2020 series on the academic theme of Race, Violence, and Health. The lecture was titled "Nuclear Colonialism: Selecting the Irradiated." In the talk I survey the selection of atmospheric nuclear test sites by the first five nuclear weapon states. These test sites were invariably located nearby to populations that lacked the political ability to stop the effort. Often these sites were in colonial or postcolonial

Tags: Nuclear Testing Fallout Radiation Cold War Hibakusha Nuclear
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Nuclear Colonialism: Selecting the Irradiated (online lecture)

by Bo

I will be presenting a lecture online on October 28 (US) / October 29 (Japan & Europe) that you can join via Zoom. The lecture will be hosted by Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where I am teaching an online course, "Radioactive Waste and Wasted Bodies: The Colonial and Racial Legacies of the Nuclear World." The online lecture is titled, "Nuclear Colonialism: Selecting the Irradiated." Here is the abstract:"There have been over 2,000 nuclear weapon tests since 1945. These tests have

Tags: Global Hibakusha Nuclear Testing Cold War Lecture History
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The Birth of Nuclear Power in the Manhattan Project: CP-1 and Hanford

by Bo

Nuclear power plants were developed as part of a large project working to kill human beings. They were born violent. Whatever one thinks of nuclear power, their origins were not beneficent. This talk examines that history.Lecture delivered at the Hiroshima Peace Institute on 11 January 2019, introducing framing mechanisms for my upcoming journal article.Note: misstatement that PU-239 comes from U-235 rather than

Tags: Hanford Cold War Nuclear Power Nuclear Weapons Nuclear Production Nuclear Waste
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Relocating Hiroshima to America in 1948

by Bo

A reprint edition of John Hersey's 1946 classis Hiroshima by Bantam Books had the following cover:This astonishing graphic was done by artist Geoffrey Biggs (1908-1971). The book included this statement about the cover:"When Geoffrey Biggs, a master of shadow and light technique in art, brought in his startling illustration for the cover of Hiroshima, everyone wated to know: 'Where'd you get those people...why those two?'Biggs said he thought back to that August morning in a certain big

Tags: Hiroshima & Nagasaki Cold War Hibakusha
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Imagining a Nuclear World War Two in Europe: Preparing US Troops for the Battlefield Use of Nuclear Weapons

by Bo

I have a new article on this in print, you can read it here.In the 1950s the US Army prepared troops to participate in a nuclear war against the Soviet Union in Europe. While the Strategic Air Command had elaborate plans to attack the Soviet Union and its assets with large nuclear weapons, the Army had only tactical nuclear weapons. It anticipated fighting the Soviet Union in battles fought very much like those of World War Two, simply with the larger, nuclear weapons added to its arsenal.To

Tags: Atomic Soldiers Cold War Nevada Test Site Nuclear Testing Nuclear Weapons Radiation
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The United States Stored Nuclear Weapons on a Boat Anchored Just Off the Iwakuni Base in Japan for Decades

by Bo

One of the biggest bombshells in the Daniel Elsberg's new book, The Doomsday Machine, was that the U.S. stored significant numbers of nuclear weapons on a ship anchored off the coast of Japan near the Iwakuni Base for decades.“However, in early 1960 I was told in great secrecy by a nuclear control officer in the Pacific that one small Marine air base at Iwakuni in Japan had a secret arrangement whereby its handful of planes with general war missions would get their nuclear weapons very quickly

Tags: Cold War Japan Nuclear Weapons
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