Review of Half-Lives & Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War by Barbara Rose Johnson

Authors

Amber Huff, University of Georgia

Date of this Version

2008

Comments

Published in Ecological and Environmental Anthropology Vol. 4, No. 1, 2008. Copyright © 2008 Huff. Used by permission. Online at http://eea.anthro.uga.edu/index.php/eea/index

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that the twentieth century nuclear arms race effectively avoided global nuclear war and its consequences through the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. In reality, the cold war was not “cold” at all, but characterized by a series conflicts and crises with political, economic and sociocultural legacies that continue to structure world politics into the 21st century. Possibly the most profound but often overlooked consequences of this period are the long-term effects of nuclear militarism on human and environmental health. In Half-Lives & Half-Truths: Confronting the Radioactive Legacies of the Cold War, edited by Barbara Rose Johnson, contributing anthropologists and advocates tackle issues relating to the production of scientific knowledge and the wide-ranging effects of nuclear weapons development, manufacture, testing, and proliferation.