Overview

During the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of people across Western Europe protested against civil nuclear energy. Nowhere were they more visible than in France and Germany-two countries where environmentalism seems to have diverged greatly since. This volume recovers the shared, transnational history of the early anti-nuclear movement, showing how low-level interactions among diverse activists led to far-reaching changes in both countries.Because nuclear energy was such a multivalent symbol, protest against it was simultaneously broad-based and highly fragmented. 'Concerned citizens' in communities near planned facilities felt that nuclear technology represented an outside intervention that potentially threatened their health, material existence, and way of life. In the decade after 1968, their concerns coalesced with more overtly 'political' criticisms of consumer society, the state, and militarism. Farmers, housewives, hippies, anarchists, and many more who defied categorization joined forces to oppose nuclear power, but the movement remained internally contradictory and outwardly unpredictable-not least with regard to violence at demonstrations.By analyzing the transnational dimensions, diverse outcomes, and internal divisions of anti-nuclear protest, Better Active than Radioactive! provides an encompassing and nuanced understanding of one of the largest 'New Social Movements' in post-war Western Europe and situates it within a decade of upheaval and protest. Drawing extensively on oral history interviews as well as police, media, and activist sources, this volume tells the story of the people behind the protests, showing how individuals at the grassroots built up a movement that transcended national borders as well as political and social differences.

Full Product Details

9780198779056

Table of Contents

Reviews

A significant contribution to the history of nuclear power during this pivotal decade, Better Active than Radioactive! is also a compelling model for how to think and do the transnational in a way that historicizes and complicates the approach itself. * Roxanne Panchasi, H-France * This book is particularly useful for specialists of post-war Europe as well as those in protest studies. At the same time, Tompkins work provides a fascinating look at the post-1968 development of French and German society that will be informative to a much wider audience. * Jared R. Donnelly (USAF), European History Quarterly, Vol. 47 * This very well-written and readable study deals with the motivations and practices of the protesters involved as they probed the national, social and cultural limits of their activities ... It is a vital contribution to our historical understanding of transnational activism, a phenomenon that is likely to grow as global challenges mount. * Michael Schüring, German History * This book will appeal to environmentalists, political scientists, historians, general readers, community colleges, undergraduates, and graduate students ... Highly recommended. * CHOICE * excellent depth and rigour of the study. Tompkins does exactly as he sets out to do: he places the focus squarely on the transnational connections between activists and activist groups, and in doing so he has made a valuable contribution not only to scholarship on the anti-nuclear movement, but also as an example of how comparative history should be undertaken. * Sinead McEneaney, Reviews in History *

-This book will appeal to environmentalists, political scientists, historians, general readers, community colleges, undergraduates, and graduate students Highly recommended.---CHOICE

Author Information

Andrew Tompkins received his DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2013 after previously studying in Paris, Berlin, Chicago, and Chapel Hill. He has also lived in Japan, Russia, Poland, and Sweden. Dr Tompkins has been associated with the Centre Marc Bloch, a Franco-German research institute, since 2010, and conducted post-doctoral research at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin with funds from the German Universities' Excellence Initiative from 2013-2016. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Sheffield. He divides his time between Berlin and Sheffield.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available