Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

The Atomic West: Region and Nation, 1942-1992 - Bruce Hevly and John Findlay

I. BUILDING A FEDERAL PRESENCE

Grand Coulee and Hanford: The Atomic Bomb and the Development of the Columbia River - Robert Ficken

General Groves and the Atomic West: The Making and Meaning of Hanford - Stanley Goldberg

Building the Atomic Cities: Richland, Los Alamos, and the American Planning Language -Carl Abbott

II. THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION AT WORK

The University of California, the Federal Weapons Labs, and the Founding of the Atomic West - Greg Herken

James L. Tuck: Scientific Polymath and Eternal Optimist of the Atomic West - Ferenc Szasz

"Hotter Than a $2 Pistol": Fallout, Sheep, and the Atomic Energy Commission, 1953-1986 - Barton Hacker

III. LOCAL RESISTANCE

Alaska and the Frecracker Boys: The Story of Project Chariot - Dan O'Neill

Radical Initiatives and Moderate Alternatives: California's 1976 Nuclear Safeguards Initiative - Thomas Wellock

Antinuclear Activism in the Pacific Northwest: WPPSS and Its Enemies - Daniel Pope

Air Force, Western Shoshone, and Mormon Rhetoric of Place and the MX Conflict - Matthew Glass

Contributors

Index

About the Author

Bruce Hevly is associate professor of history at the University of Washington. John Findlay is professor of history and director of the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, University of Washington. Other contributors include Robert E. Ficken, Carl Abbott, Stanley Goldberg, Gregg Herken, Ferenc M. Szasz, Barton C. Hacker, Dan O'Neill, Matthew Glass, Thomas Wellock, and Daniel Pope.

Reviews

Ever since World War II, when plutonium was manufactured in Hanford, WA, and the atomic bomb was designed and tested in New Mexico, the U.S. government has placed a number of nuclear facilities in the American West. How the development of atomic power affected this region is the subject of these two very different books. The Atomic West is a collection of papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Center for the Pacific Northwest at the University of Washington. The well-documented articles examine both the promise and the problems of the Manhattan Project. Offering the perspective of someone who lives in the region, award-winning nature writer Meloy (Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River, LJ 6/15/94) visited the Trinity Site, Los Alamos, and the sites of uranium mining. She describes the landscape and the effects of radiation on the area's plants and animals. Both books fill niches in history of science collections. Meloy's offers insight for the nonspecialist and is recommended to public libraries, especially regional collections. The Atomic West is for larger academic libraries.‘Dale Ebersole Jr., Univ. of Toledo Lib., OH