The Atomic Bomb and American Society: New Perspectives (review)

It is encouraging that as the nuclear age nears its seventh decade, social scientists and humanists continue to analyze and interpret what it means for American society. The eighteen essays in this volume look at the effects of the bomb on U.S. foreign policy, on the scientists and technologists who brought the bomb into being, on the workers and communities that designed and manufactured it, and on American culture. Coeditor Rosemary Mariner is a former professor of military studies at the National War College; coeditor Kurt Piehler is a historian and former director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

The volume begins with a sweeping review of the nuclear age by historian Paul Boyer, who makes two straightforward arguments: the bomb is central to postwar American culture, and the cultural impact of the bomb flowed and ebbed with the levels of anxiety and organized domestic resistance it has produced. Boyer detects three "cycles" in the atomic age marked by bursts of antinuclear activism and cultural expression.

In part 2, the focus is on the creation of the bomb and public reactions in the immediate aftermath of its use on Japan. We get a fine account from Peter K. Parides of how Vannevar Bush and James B. Conant marshaled scientific and technological expertise on behalf of war preparedness and ultimately bomb construction in the face of bureaucratic pettiness and turf consciousness. George K. Webb provides a fascinating look at the post-Hiroshima discussion of the bomb in local papers across the United States. Mary Anne Schofield adds new insight to the gendered accounts of "war talk" in her examination of the roles played by a selection of women at Los Alamos. Judy Barrett Litoff performs a similarly salutary service in her looks at the wartime correspondence of women and their families deeply troubled by the implications of the bomb and its destruction of tens of thousands of Japanese.

In part 3 there are five chapters about failed attempts to control and manage the risks of the genie once released. Megan Barnhart examines the Deweyesque Federation of American Scientists campaign to educate the public about the bomb—"no secret, no defense, international control"—in uneasy league with the professional opinion-manipulators of the Advertising Council. Shane J. Maddock provides a fascinating analysis of the role of American exceptionalist ideology in U.S. nonproliferation policy. Tracey C. Davis looks at the confused and contradictory federal policies and exercises to maintain "continuity of government" following a nuclear attack before and after the Cuban missile crisis. Jenny Barker Devine provides fresh insight into fearful civil-defense rhetoric through her focus on its circulation and application in rural America. Robert E. Hunter adds a new layer to our understanding of Hollywood and the bomb through his critical review of three nuclear-terrorism movies from the 1950s.

Part 4 includes interesting takes on culture and the bomb. William David Freeman adds a new chapter to the history of the nuclear navy through oral interviews with the "elite techno-sailors" known as Nukes. Todd A. Hanson explodes the "Dr. Strangelove myth" regarding atomic scientists—and fights against anti-rationalist critiques of science—in his biography of William Ogle, "a brilliant scientist and team leader, yet somewhat ordinary American family man" (p. 263). David M. Walker revisits the nuclearization of the U.S. military from strategic ballistic missiles to tactical shells for shore bombardment and "future war" as envisioned by military strategists and comic-book writers. Michael A. Day turns to an examination of the atomic scientists as postwar public intellectuals, with a focus on J. Robert Oppenheimer and Isidor I. Rabi. Christopher John Bright returns us to the late 1950s, when nuclear antiaircraft missiles were distributed across the country. These devices showed up in films, on television programs (including an episode of Lassie), in children's plastic model kits, and in hairstyles.

The book...