Big Science Fiction: Kernfusion und Popkultur in den USA by Simon Märkl (review)

The original idea for this book is reflected in its title: “Big Science” always involves expectations about the future and the aim to shape it through technology. To raise the necessary public funding, big science promoters rely on fictitious narratives about the future and the potential benefits of their technology. Such “big science fiction” is more persuasive if it resonates with popular culture. Simon Märkl’s case is well-chosen: nuclear fusion has been one of the largest post-war big science goals. Unlike electronics, space and nuclear fission, fusion has nevertheless remained futuristic. Neither its technological feasibility nor its commercial worth has ever been demonstrated.

Märkl’s book, based on his Ph.D. thesis at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, looks at the United States’ experience. This purely national focus is justified by the specifics of the U.S. media system and the role of popular culture in American society. Imported media content such as Godzilla (p. 67), originating from Japan, is only occasionally mentioned. Märkl covers the Cold War era, clearly the heyday of big science, between 1945 and 1991.

In his introduction, Märkl discusses key concepts like big science, popular culture and the public sphere, their function and relations, with a view to the state of the art in STS and history of science and technology. In a “discourse history” (p. 16) he analyses an impressively wide range of media in popular culture: from propagandistic documentaries, critical feature films like Dr. Strangelove and television series, to image-driven Time and Life magazines and leading quality newspapers like the New York Times, graphic novels, scientific books like Herman Kahn’s On Thermonuclear War, government publications, and both popular and academic journals. In terms of methodology, a more systematic discussion on the choice of sources, potential differences—but also interactions—between genres and materials would have greatly strengthened the study. A brief presentation of the various actors in fusion research, including key individuals like the notorious Edward Teller, their goals and linkages to military and civilian institutions, and the nuclear sector more generally, would have been useful.

Drawing on Joan Lisa Bromberg’s periodization of the history of nuclear fusion, Märkl divides its public history and his chapters by decades. One of the constant themes of the fusion discourse is that it will solve the energy issue once and for all, by providing endless supplies. What changes, however, is its embedding in contemporary debates. Fusion research started with the hydrogen bomb in the early 1950s. Märkl highlights the similarities in the political representation of fission and fusion. Given the initial association with military uses, the United States felt almost compelled to promise civilian uses, for the good of society and humanity. Such rhetoric continued well into the 1960s, notably in the Atomic Energy Commission’s PR.

One of Märkl’s most surprising observations regarding the 1970s is how well nuclear fusion research fared in terms of government funding. In the wake of the oil crisis, its promises obviously trumped the critical and popular debates with a view to growth, consumer society, big science and large corporations, and the rise of environmentalism. However, these observations somewhat contradict Märkl’s assumption in the introduction, that popular culture and the public sphere crucially impact government decision-making.

Märkl’s account closes with the retrofuturism of the 1980s: ironic visions of small fusion reactors feeding on junk. After a second oil crisis and Three Mile Island, energy appeared more as a “problem, rather than a promise” (p. 182). Towards the end of the Cold War, fusion—once the object of that war’s competition—again served peaceful purposes, by internationalizing research across the Cold War divide.

The author offers a highly interesting and jargon-free essay on the public history of nuclear fusion, singling out its core themes, political and cultural embedding, and change over time. The book’s text would have...