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

by Arjun Makhijani (Editor), Howard Hu (Editor)

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.

696 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Nick Black]

"In the early 1960's, South Africa established the National Nuclear Research Center at Pelindaba, a Zulu word for 'We don't talk about this anymore.'" (quoted from [The Nuclear Fix: A Guide to Nuclear Activities in the Third World] in Nuclear Wastelands).

Went back and read this again. I'm less impressed than I was the first time through -- this is really more a collating of sources, with little original work. Standout efforts remain the Soviet and French programs, though the former is now rather more than a bit out of date due to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and generalized buyback of Soviet HEU during the last two decades. I think I need to get ibid and Spector's 1990 Nuclear Ambitions, from which the non-nuclear states material seems largely to have been cribbed.

Amazon third-party, 2009-04-18. Dear lord, that was depressing. Suffers a secondary effect of (necessary) use of medical literature -- it's a shifty sand, with one study contradicting another, a horrid emphasis on inductive reasoning (you're treating me based on what?!?! where's the axiomatic movement in medicine?). Fascinating information regarding the Soviet and French programs that I hadn't seen elsewhere. Well-researched, with a comforting ~5 footnoted references per page -- mmmm, smells like quality. The global emphasis is a refreshing shift from so many States-centric works of this nature, as is the rigorous presentation of data (error ranges are, without exception, stated directly and usefully).