Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects - Hardcover

Makhijani, Arjun; Hu, Howard

3.8

5 ratings by Goodreads

9780262133074: Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0262133075 ISBN 13: 9780262133074

Publisher: Mit Pr, 1995

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A handbook for scholars, students, policy makers, journalists, and peace and environmental activists.A handbook for scholars, students, policy makers, journalists, and peace and environmental activists, Nuclear Wastelands provides concise histories of the development of nuclear weapons programs of every declared and de facto nuclear weapons power, as well as detailed surveys of the health and environmental effects of this development both in these countries and in non-nuclear nations involved in nuclear weapons testing and uranium mining. Among the more obvious but largely deferred costs of the Cold War are those related to the management of radioactive waste. The world is burdened with thousands of unwanted nuclear devices and mounting surpluses of weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium. In addition, the process of weapons production and testing has left many lands, aquifers, rivers, lakes, and seas contaminated by a multitude of weapons-related poisons. This book follows the production process step by step and country by country from uranium mining to the final assembly and storage of weapons, analyzing the potential hazards of each step and compiling the most complete information available on the actual health and environmental effects, in each country involved. Nuclear Wastelands includes a wealth of information that has only recently come to light, particularly on the nuclear weapons program of the former Soviet Union. It also features critical analyses of official public communications concerning the health and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons production, bringing to light governmental secrecy and outright deception that have led to the subversion of democratic principles, and have camouflaged the damage done to the very people and lands the weapons were meant to safeguard.

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About the Author:

Howard Hu is Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Review:

An astonishing... collection of research on nuclear weapons.... This voluminous book is a kind of Baedeker of the Bomb. It meticulously gathers together every piece of public information about the nuclear cycle, some of it leaked, some of it dragged out thanks to court cases, some published in specialist commissions but little noticed at the time. No future research into nuclear weapons will be credible unless it refers to this study.―Jonathan Steele, The Guardian

[Nuclear Wastelands] meticulously gathers together everypiece of public information about the nuclear cycle, some of itleaked, some dragged out thanks to court cases, some published inspecialist commissions but little noticed at the time. No futureresearch into nuclear weapons will be credible unless it refers tothis study.―Jonathan Steele, The Guardian

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