![]() ![]() More than anything, countries sought atomic energy for electricity production, and they quickly learned that this was not what the United States had in mind. The second part, "Atomic Propaganda," demonstrates the mutability and ultimate hollowness of the Atoms for Peace program as countries sought to take Eisenhower up on his atomic promises. Hamblin reframes Eisenhower’s visionary 1953 "Atoms for Peace" speech as concealing the administration’s lack of progress on US disarmament and its ever-expanding hydrogen bomb program. This strategy was expanded under the Eisenhower administration. Hamblin reminds us that the Baruch Plan of 1946 touted international control of atomic energy mere weeks before Operation Crossroads, the first nuclear weapons tests after the Second World War. The book’s first part, "Atomic Promises," emphasizes the peaceful atom as a rhetorical shield for the US nuclear weapons program. Any one of Hamblin’s case studies would have ably made this point, but the cumulative effect underscores how central this approach was for US promotion of atomic energy. Hamblin demonstrates that the peaceful atom was politicized, propagandistic, and even blatantly deceitful. The broad scope demonstrates how enduring the promises of atomic energy really were while simultaneously emphasizing the manipulative nature of this "cornucopian vision" (p. Told in three parts, Hamblin’s narrative spans the Cold War period and beyond. Behind the peaceful atom was "an instrument of geopolitical influence and power," rooted in utopian promises that the atom would modernize impoverished postcolonial states (p. Hamblin demonstrates this truth by revealing how atomic energy was wielded by powerful states to impose a form of neocolonialism. Fanon warned that technology offered by European and North American states for postcolonial economic development would amount to little more than empty promises, perhaps even "providing an in-road to other forms of paternalistic influence" (p. Hamblin’s title, The Wretched Atom, drawn from Frantz Fanon’s 1961 work Les Damnés de la Terre ( The Wretched of the Earth), adeptly hints at the gut-wrenching conclusions made in this book. But for Jacob Darwin Hamblin, the peaceful atom is wretched. These peaceful applications of atomic energy would more than make up for its terrible weaponized uses. If embraced, they hoped the atom would be able to cure diseases, end hunger, and provide a limitless source of electricity. Hardy (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse)Īt the dawn of the atomic age, advocates for the peaceful uses of atomic energy promised that it would change the world. Reviewed by Katie Davis (University of Toronto)Ĭommissioned by Penelope K. The Wretched Atom: America's Global Gamble with Peaceful Nuclear Technology. ![]()
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