This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
This module critically examines the surface and decay of Nuclear America in the twentieth century. Responsible for ushering in the modern atomic era, the USA is widely acknowledged as a pioneer in nuclear technology and weaponry. Receptivity towards the atom has nonetheless shifted over time: atomic materials once heralded the saviour of American society (through the promise of reactors delivering 'electricity to cheap to meter') have also been deemed responsible for long-term environmental problems and doomsday anxieties. Why the atom has received typically bi-polar and polemic responses is of great interest here. Along with events of global significance (such as the bombing of Hiroshima), the module also covers the more intimate views of American citizens living and working close to ground zero. Personal testimonies come from ‘atomic foot soldiers’ traversing blast sites in the 1950s and protesters trespassing across reactor sites in the 1970s. In particular, the module examines the role of media, propaganda and image in inventing popular understandings of the nuclear age, as well as the contribution of atomic scientists to national discourse.
Total contact hours: 36
Private study hours: 264
Total study hours: 300
Main assessment methods:
Essay 5,000 words 70%
Presentation 10-15 minutes 30%
Reassessment methods:
Reassessment Instrument: 100% coursework
Indicative Reading List:
Howard Ball, Justice Downwind: America's Atomic Testing Program in the 1950s (1986)
Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age (1994)
Philip Cantelon, Richard Hewlett & Robert Williams (eds.), The American Atom: A Documentary History (1991)
Barbara Epstein, Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s (1991)
Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (1999)
Richard Misrach, Bravo 20: The Bombing of the American West (1990)
Philip Noble (ed.), Judgment at the Smithsonian: The Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1995)
Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986)
Kenneth Rose, One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture (2001)
Tom Vanderbilt, Survival City: Adventures Among the Ruins of Atomic America (2002)
Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear (1986)
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Navigate a number of sub-disciplines of history, including cultural, social and environmental history, and recognized how historians and other scholars have responded to nuclear issues with a variety of responses and agendas.
2 Produce (and reflected on) written assignments and oral arguments situated within the discourse of American nuclear history by engaging with a range of apposite materials including US military propaganda films, atomic veteran memoirs, protester newspapers, alongside traditional histories.
3 Critically analysed the relationship between US military uses of nuclear weapons, media representations of the bomb and concepts of science, progress and security in the modern age.
4 Discuss how nuclear issues relate to themes of gender, nationalism, conformity and scientific norms.
5 Recognize the controversial nature of how to present nuclear memory/past in history, landscape and exhibit.
6 Improve their ability to analyse, criticise and assess historical arguments.
7 Analyse visual sources including maps, films, and documentaries.
8 Improve their ability to plan and write an original history essay and to organise it around a coherent argument.
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Participate in discussion, make their own contributions to discussion and listen to and respect the contributions of others through the two-hour seminar format.
2 Engage in group work, cooperating on set tasks toward answering historical questions (for example, discussions over the social responsibility of Manhattan Project scientists), presenting individual and group responses.
3 Communicate their own ideas clearly and coherently, orally and in writing, assisted by peer and teacher feedback.
4 Reflect on their own learning, plan their use of time, and identify appropriate directions for further study, encouraged by the teacher.
5 Produce word-processed assignments that are of a high scholarly standard in terms of presentation and professionalism.
6 Effectively research using the Internet; recognizing the variety of sites on nuclear issues (such as the US Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site online resource) located on the world wide web and their associated problems/benefits.
7 Research issues independently and productively.
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