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Plutopia

Plutopia

Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters

by Kate Brown
Downloadable audio file
Publication Date: 19/12/2017

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In Plutopia, Kate Brown draws on official records and dozens of interviews to tell the extraordinary stories of Richland, Washington, and Ozersk, Russia-the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium. To contain secrets, American and Soviet leaders created plutopias-communities of nuclear families living in highly subsidized, limited-access atomic cities. Fully employed and medically monitored, the residents of Richland and Ozersk enjoyed all the pleasures of consumer society, while nearby, migrants, prisoners, and soldiers were banned from plutopia-they lived in temporary "staging grounds" and often performed the most dangerous work at the plant. Brown shows that the plants' segregation of permanent and temporary workers and of nuclear and non-nuclear zones created a bubble of immunity, where dumps and accidents were glossed over and plant managers freely embezzled and polluted. In four decades, the Hanford plant near Richland and the Maiak plant near Ozersk each issued at least 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment.An untold and profoundly important piece of Cold War history, Plutopia invites listeners to consider the nuclear footprint left by the arms race and the enormous price of paying for it.
ISBN:
9781541499607
9781541499607
Category:
Uncategorized
Format:
Downloadable audio file
Publication Date:
19-12-2017
Language:
English
Publisher:
Tantor Media, Incorporated
Country of origin:
United States
Kate Brown

Kate lives in a flat in Oxford with her pet snail called Hercules. She really really likes comics. If Hercules could talk, he'd say he likes comics too.

Kate's favourite types of stories are happy ones with sad endings, her favourite colours are red and blue, and her favourite food is MSG.

Kate was a Winner of a 2010 Arts Foundation Fellowship.

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