Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 311 pages
- Published by: Rutgers University Press February 28, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0813542200
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0813542201
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Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
- Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Description
In the early 1990s, Russian President Boris Yeltsin revealed that for the previous thirty years the Soviet Union had dumped vast amounts of dangerous radioactive waste into rivers and seas in blatant violation of international agreements. The disclosure caused outrage throughout the Western world, particularly since officials from the Soviet Union had denounced environmental pollution by the United States and Britain throughout the cold war.
Poison in the Well provides a balanced look at the policy decisions, scientific conflicts, public relations strategies, and the myriad mishaps and subsequent cover-ups that were born out of the dilemma of where to house deadly nuclear materials. Why did scientists and politicians choose the sea for waste disposal? How did negotiations about the uses of the sea change the way scientists, government officials, and ultimately the lay public envisioned the oceans? Jacob Darwin Hamblin traces the development of the issue in Western countries from the end of
World War II to the blossoming of the environmental movement in the early 1970s.
This is an important book for students and scholars in the history of science who want to explore a striking case study of the conflicts that so often occur at the intersection of science, politics, and international diplomacy.
About The Author
Jacob Darwin Hamblin is an assistant professor of history at Clemson University.
Reader ReviewsHaving grown up in the span of time covered in this book,(and not paying much attention), I found myself often aghast at the waste disposal practices and the decisions made by the corporate "they" who determine our fate. Green devotees will be appalled to learn the global history of cavalier dumping of toxic waste into our waterways. This is not a sensational expose, but rather a well researched, extremely well-written illumination of what was going on with regard to radioactive waste in the beginning years of our modern nuclear age. It should be required reading for all environmental studies.
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