Nuclear Fear
A History of Images
Spencer R. Weart(Author)
Harvard University Press
Published on 1. January 1989
Book
Paperback/Softback
544 pages
978-0-674-62836-6 (ISBN)
Description
Reviews / Votes
Nuclear Fear is a rich, layered journey back through our 'atomic history' to the primal memories of monstrous mutants and mad scientists. It is a deeply serious book but written in an accessible style that reveals the culture in which this fear emerges only to be suppressed and emerge again. -- Ellen Goodman Boston Globe A historical portrait of the quintessential modern nightmare...Weart shows in meticulous and fascinating detail how [the] ancient images of alchemy-fire, sexuality, Armageddon, gold, eternity and all the rest-immediately clustered around the new science of atomic physics...There is no question that the image of nuclear power reflects a complex and deeply disturbing portrait of what it means to be human. -- Stephan Salisbury Philadelphia Inquirer A detailed, probing study of American hopes, dreams and insecurities in the twentieth-century. Weart has a poet's acumen for sensing human feelings ... Nuclear Fear remains captivating as history...and original as an anthropological study of how nuclear power, like alchemy in medieval times, offers a convenient symbol for deeply-rooted human feelings. Los Angeles Times Weart's tale boldly sweeps from the futuristic White City of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 through Hiroshima and Star Wars... (An] admirable call for synthesis of art and science in a true transmutation that takes us beyond nuclear fear. -- H. Bruce Franklin ScienceMore details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 166 mm
Thickness: 39 mm
Weight
826 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-62836-6 (9780674628366)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Spencer R. Weart is Director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics.
Content
Preface PART ONE: Years of Fantasy, 1902-1938 1.