Overview

The war in Ukraine, with the exposure of nuclear power stations and the danger of atomic warfare, has made the legacy of the Soviet nuclear sector of critical importance. The two authors map the Soviet nuclear industry in a shifting historical context, making sense of a complex socio-technical and environmental history. Taking an innovative approach, this book explores the history of atomic power in the former Soviet Union using the spatial dimensions of the nuclear industry as a point of departure. The key concept is that of the archipelago – a network of nuclear facilities spread throughout the Soviet territory, but mutually reliant on each other and densely connected. The story traces the emergence of nuclear science and technology for military and civilian purposes through to the post-Soviet Russian nuclear corporations as providers of resources and technology. The book explains how nuclear developments in the Soviet Union interacted with processes of environmental and landscape change. The spatial lens offers an analytically fruitful and pedagogically stimulating way to comprehend the nuclear histories of the Soviet Union and its successor states.

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9789633866474

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Reviews

"""This timely, panoramic history of the Soviet and post-Soviet nuclear enterprise reveals the dynamic entanglements between natural and technological elements of an ever-growing nuclear archipelago from mines, industries, and entire cities, to the rivers, canals, railways, and grids connecting them, and from Europe to the Far East--all in service of state goals."" --Tatiana Kasperski ""Drawing on the concept of 'envirotechnical systems, ' the authors provide a novel account of the Soviet and Russian nuclear history, depicting the diverse ways in which nuclear technologies coevolve with their broader, 'non-nuclear' contexts--the local and regional geographies, landscapes, and environments. Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand Russia's central yet problematic role in the promised nuclear renaissance."" --Markku Lehtonen"

Author Information

Per Högselius is Professor of History of Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He holds a MSc in Engineering Physics, a PhD in Innovation Studies and a Docent (Habilitation) degree in History of Science and Technology. He specializes in transnational studies of energy and infrastructures in historical perspective, with a particular emphasis on East-West relations. Achim Klüppelberg is a doctoral candidate in History of Science, Technology and Environment at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He holds a BA in History and Political Science (2013) and an MA in Eastern European History (2016), both from the University of Göttingen, Germany. His studies also included a longer stay at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU). His doctoral project focuses on the on the nuclear history of the Soviet Union and its successor states. He is a member of the German Society of Historians and the Society of Historians for Eastern Europe.

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