Overview

An important investigation of the sociocultural fallout of America's work on the atomic bomb In The Nuclear Borderlands, Joseph Masco offers an in-depth look at the long-term consequences of the Manhattan Project. Masco examines how diverse groups in and around Los Alamos, New Mexico understood and responded to the U.S. nuclear weapons project i

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Reviews

Masco seems to have taken to heart the tension between anthropology and science studies: on the one hand science studies too often fails in its understanding of what long-term intensive fieldwork can do; on the other anthropology too often fails to get directly into the heart of science and technology the way it always has language, spirituality, and economy. Masco's book is fusion (that impossible goal of our nuclear culture) of the best kind. ---Christopher Kelty, Savage Minds Masco's important and impressive study ably demonstrates that nuclear weapons need not be detonated to have profound effects--effects that extend far beyond the well-studied realms of politics and international relations. ---David Kaiser, American Scientist Honorable Mention for the 2007 John G. Cawelti Award, American Culture Association Co-Winner of the 2006 Robert K. Merton Prize, Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association Winner of the 2008 Rachel Carson Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science Winner of the 2014 J.I. Staley Prize, School of Advanced Research Joseph Masco's argument that nuclear weapons are no longer a technology subject to scientific challenge but rather exist primarily as powerful cultural constructs takes us a long way toward understanding post-Cold War continuities in U.S. security strategies, as well as some of the astounding aspects of American exceptionalism in international politics. --John Borneman, Princeton University No account of the post Cold War environment can afford to ignore this study and the tangle of economic, political, and cultural rights, interests, and imperatives it maps. Joe Masco pushes the ethnographic agenda firmly forward into an ambivalent twenty-first century, where Los Alamos is both dangerous polluter and lifeline employer, where rival eco-cultures, ethnicities, and social hierarchies fight over control of nature, and where the technological future can exacerbate or redeem the nuclear past. Neither antinuclear environmentalists, nor Native Americans, nor Nuevomexicanos, nor the Los Alamos scientists, nor the Washington politicians have a monopoly on the answers, and Masco shows us why. --Michael M. J. Fischer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice The Nuclear Borderlands alters the meaning of 'ethnography' in a way that will challenge all of us in anthropology. It will certainly take its place among the classic texts assessing the cultural politics of the bomb, and it will join the must-read ranks in the literature on American nationalism and nation-making in the late twentieth century. --Susan Harding, University of California, Santa Cruz, author of The Book of Jerry Falwell and Remaking Ibieca

Masco's important and impressive study ably demonstrates that nuclear weapons need not be detonated to have profound effects--effects that extend far beyond the well-studied realms of politics and international relations. ---David Kaiser, American Scientist Co-Winner of the 2006 Robert K. Merton Prize, Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association Masco seems to have taken to heart the tension between anthropology and science studies: on the one hand science studies too often fails in its understanding of what long-term intensive fieldwork can do; on the other anthropology too often fails to get directly into the heart of science and technology the way it always has language, spirituality, and economy. Masco's book is fusion (that impossible goal of our nuclear culture) of the best kind. ---Christopher Kelty, Savage Minds Honorable Mention for the 2007 John G. Cawelti Award, American Culture Association Winner of the 2008 Rachel Carson Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science Winner of the 2014 J.I. Staley Prize, School of Advanced Research Joseph Masco's argument that nuclear weapons are no longer a technology subject to scientific challenge but rather exist primarily as powerful cultural constructs takes us a long way toward understanding post-Cold War continuities in U.S. security strategies, as well as some of the astounding aspects of American exceptionalism in international politics. --John Borneman, Princeton University The Nuclear Borderlands alters the meaning of 'ethnography' in a way that will challenge all of us in anthropology. It will certainly take its place among the classic texts assessing the cultural politics of the bomb, and it will join the must-read ranks in the literature on American nationalism and nation-making in the late twentieth century. --Susan Harding, University of California, Santa Cruz, author of The Book of Jerry Falwell and Remaking Ibieca No account of the post Cold War environment can afford to ignore this study and the tangle of economic, political, and cultural rights, interests, and imperatives it maps. Joe Masco pushes the ethnographic agenda firmly forward into an ambivalent twenty-first century, where Los Alamos is both dangerous polluter and lifeline employer, where rival eco-cultures, ethnicities, and social hierarchies fight over control of nature, and where the technological future can exacerbate or redeem the nuclear past. Neither antinuclear environmentalists, nor Native Americans, nor Nuevomexicanos, nor the Los Alamos scientists, nor the Washington politicians have a monopoly on the answers, and Masco shows us why. --Michael M. J. Fischer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice

The Nuclear Borderlands alters the meaning of 'ethnography' in a way that will challenge all of us in anthropology. It will certainly take its place among the classic texts assessing the cultural politics of the bomb, and it will join the must-read ranks in the literature on American nationalism and nation-making in the late twentieth century. --Susan Harding, University of California, Santa Cruz, author of The Book of Jerry Falwell and Remaking Ibieca No account of the post Cold War environment can afford to ignore this study and the tangle of economic, political, and cultural rights, interests, and imperatives it maps. Joe Masco pushes the ethnographic agenda firmly forward into an ambivalent twenty-first century, where Los Alamos is both dangerous polluter and lifeline employer, where rival eco-cultures, ethnicities, and social hierarchies fight over control of nature, and where the technological future can exacerbate or redeem the nuclear past. Neither antinuclear environmentalists, nor Native Americans, nor Nuevomexicanos, nor the Los Alamos scientists, nor the Washington politicians have a monopoly on the answers, and Masco shows us why. --Michael M. J. Fischer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice Joseph Masco's argument that nuclear weapons are no longer a technology subject to scientific challenge but rather exist primarily as powerful cultural constructs takes us a long way toward understanding post-Cold War continuities in U.S. security strategies, as well as some of the astounding aspects of American exceptionalism in international politics. --John Borneman, Princeton University Masco's important and impressive study ably demonstrates that nuclear weapons need not be detonated to have profound effects--effects that extend far beyond the well-studied realms of politics and international relations. ---David Kaiser, American Scientist Masco seems to have taken to heart the tension between anthropology and science studies: on the one hand science studies too often fails in its understanding of what long-term intensive fieldwork can do; on the other anthropology too often fails to get directly into the heart of science and technology the way it always has language, spirituality, and economy. Masco's book is fusion (that impossible goal of our nuclear culture) of the best kind. ---Christopher Kelty, Savage Minds Winner of the 2014 J.I. Staley Prize, School of Advanced Research Winner of the 2008 Rachel Carson Prize, Society for Social Studies of Science Honorable Mention for the 2007 John G. Cawelti Award, American Culture Association Co-Winner of the 2006 Robert K. Merton Prize, Science, Knowledge, and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association

Author Information

Joseph Masco is professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Theater of Operations.

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