Overview

This book explores aspects of the social and cultural history of nuclear Britain in the Cold War era (1945–1991) and contributes to a more multivalent exploration of the consequences of nuclear choices which are too often left unacknowledged by historians of post-war Britain. In the years after 1945, the British government mobilised money, scientific knowledge, people and military–industrial capacity to create both an independent nuclear deterrent and the generation of electricity through nuclear reactors. This expensive and vast ‘technopolitical’ project, mostly top-secret and run by small sub-committees within government, was central to broader Cold War strategy and policy. Recent attempts to map the resulting social and cultural history of these military–industrial policy decisions suggest that nuclear mobilisation had far-reaching consequences for British life. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Contemporary British History.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jonathan Hogg (University of Liverpool, UK) ,  Kate Brown
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Weight:   0.420kg
ISBN:  

9780367743116

ISBN 10:   0367743116
Pages:   132
Publication Date:   19 May 2021
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Introduction: social and cultural histories of British nuclear mobilisation since 1945 Jonathan Hogg and Kate Brown 1. Mass observing the atom bomb: the emotional politics of August 1945 Claire Langhamer 2. ‘...what in the hell’s this?’ Rehearsing nuclear war in Britain’s Civil Defence Corps Jessica Douthwaite 3. ‘Nuclear Prospects’: the siting and construction of Sizewell A power station 1957-1966 Christine Wall 4. Weaponising peace: the Greater London Council, cultural policy, and ‘GLC Peace Year 1983’ Hazel Atashroo 5. Resist and survive: Welsh protests and the British nuclear state in the 1980s Christophe Laucht and Martin Johnes 6. Britain, West Africa and ‘The new nuclear imperialism’: decolonisation and development during French tests Christopher Robert Hill

Reviews

Author Information

Jonathan Hogg is Senior Lecturer in Twentieth Century History at the University of Liverpool, UK. He is the author of British Nuclear Culture: Official and Unofficial Narratives in the Long Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury, 2016), and editor of the e-textbook Using Primary Sources (Liverpool University Press, 2017). Kate Brown is Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. Her numerous books include Plutopia: Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford, 2013), Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten (University of Chicago Press, 2015), and most recently Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future (Allen Lane, 2019).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions