Bikinis and Other Atomic Incidents: The Synthetic Life of the Nuclear Pacific

This article examines a range of mid-twentieth-century American fashions, particularly women’s intimate wear, that went by the name of “bikini.” In doing so, it identifies the bikini as an overt but unremarkable incident of racial and colonial violence. Treating the nuclear Pacific as conspicuously incidental in mainstream atomic culture enables new insights on the visual interplay between white femininity and primitive sexuality—an interplay that, the author argues, was integral to establishing domestic virtue and modern living as atomic age touchstones of “peace.” To elaborate on this argument, this article tracks the bikini’s achievement of propriety within a broader fashion revolution spurred by the use of high-tech fibers in swim, sleep, and support garments. It shows how an atomic ideal of “nature” arose from an imperial desire for security in the face of extreme risk—both the global risk of nuclear war and the domestic risk of sexual promiscuity.

‘Wars Begin in the Minds of Men’: Psychiatry and the Cold War Antinuclear Movement

This article analyzes the history of psychiatrists’ entwined efforts to understand the psychological effect of nuclear war’s threat and to disseminate those findings as a contribution to the antinuclear movement. The sub-specialty of ‘nuclear psychiatry’ sought: (1) to expose how avoidance, denial, and dehumanization set the conditions for the arms race and, potentially, nuclear war; (2) to explain the psychological consequences of nuclear war’s threat, particularly on children and adolescents. By enlightening leaders and the public about delusional, distorted thinking on the nuclear question and the rise of nuclear anxiety, psychiatrist-activists hoped to leverage their expertise for political ends. Connecting developments in the United States with those in Great Britain and the Soviet Union, this article draws on previously untapped archival and published materials, including research findings, media coverage, and internal documents from profession-based antinuclear organizations from the 1960s through the 1980s. In the process, it reveals the centrality of psy-disciplines to the history of the antinuclear movement and the Nuclear Age.

The role of society in public administration in the field of environmental protection

The need for environmental protection is based on the assumption that environmental degradation harms humans and hinders economic development. However, the real resolution of the contradiction between the economy and nature in the field of environmental protection causes certain difficulties, as evidenced by the growing threat to environmental safety in the world. We invite readers to discuss the materials of our analysis and a general assessment of the global problems of our time and possible ways for the further development of mankind. The author grouped them in a number of areas: the essence and classification of the main problems of our time; the origins of the global problems of our time; possible consequences of a nuclear war; theories of "Global crises" and "Cornucopia"; the concepts of "Sustainable Development", "Golden Billion", "10 Golden Billions"; the problem of the relationship between the social and the biological in man. Based on the results of the discussion, we hope to determine the role of the state, man and society as a whole, their level of interaction in developing solutions for the preservation of the environment and humanity as a species at the present stage of its development.

Review of Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations translated by Richard Howard and Annette Baker Fox (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967)

Wight suggests that Aron’s book, first published in 1962, has not won the recognition it deserves, owing in part to ‘Anglo-American intellectual insularity’ and ‘the massiveness of the book itself’. Wight praises Aron for grounding his work in history: ‘Rich in historical reference, it abounds equally in acute analysis.’ The book raises the questions of preventing and containing nuclear war. ‘Cautiously, tentatively, himself a political Clausewitz, Aron accumulates the considerations which may make it possible that a nuclear war would not expand to its fullest violence.’ Wight shares Aron’s judgement that, ‘if war should come, we can still seek to restrict violence. Aron repeatedly asserts the indeterminacy of politics. Diplomacy is the realm of the contingent and the unforeseen, and the statesman’s supreme virtue is prudence, which means acting in accordance with the concrete data of the particular situation.’

Normalising Nuclear War: Narrative Scenarios, Imaginative Geographies and Sites of Leisure in 1950s Britain

This chapter offers an interpretation of British regional civil defence activities in the 1950s. I argue that the persistent social impact of nationwide sociotechnical imaginaries of nuclear weapons cannot be fully understood without considering the localised social, geographical and discursive contexts in which civil defence was located and enacted. This chapter traces the ways in which a wider (officially maintained) sociotechnical imaginary appears to have been embedded in and intertwined with these localised contexts. After discussing the bespoke narrative scenarios created to frame civil defence exercises and offering analysis of their public representation, I focus on sites of leisure and forms of civic engagement linked to civil defence activity. Lastly, I turn to imaginative geographies to explore how sociotechnical imaginaries became localised in this era.

‘The World is Her Home’: The Role of Women Volunteers in Dutch Civil Defence in the 1950s and 1960s

This chapter describes, and attempts to explain, the contrast between a successful campaign by women volunteers to prepare women for protecting their families in the event of nuclear war and the stumbling efforts of the official Dutch civil defence organisation. The explanation is sought in the perception (or sociotechnical imaginary) of these women of their role in the nuclear age, and the grassroots quality of their work, as opposed to the top-down views and practices of the civil defence organisation, in a society which had a low opinion of the government’s efficacy in the extreme emergency of a nuclear war. The chapter illustrates the influence of widespread and deeply engrained perceptions, such as trust in the government and gender stereotypes, on attitudes towards a new threat.

Framing Civil Defence Critique: Swiss Physicians’ Resistance to the Coordinated Medical Services in the 1980s

The Coordinated Medical Services, an emblematic organisation of Switzerland’s total national defence system, were operational at the beginning of the 1980s. Through the Coordinated Medical Services, Swiss authorities propagated a sociotechnical imaginary the core of which was that Switzerland was able to survive a nuclear war through a huge collective effort. This vision faced severe criticism, in particular, from members of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (PSR/IPPNW Switzerland). The chapter sheds light on their resistive actions, including conscientious objection, as well as on their effective discursive strategy of subjectivisation centring around the figure of the conscientious physician. This resistance contributed to a growing civil defence criticism that challenged the Swiss total national defence imaginary.

Ruins of Resilience: Imaginaries and Materiality Imagineered and Embedded in Civil Defence Architecture

This chapter examines ruin towns: civil defence training grounds that replicated urban war zones. The ruins provided a stage for enacting nuclear war, where the merely imagined was given a tangible expression. The chapter sketches the transnational extension-by-invitation of a British model of ruins to Denmark, and through architectural and historical analysis, it asks how it was re-embedded into a new national context and appropriated to local needs to become part of the common Danish civil defence landscape. The chapter, then, discusses how these ruin towns contributed to an affirmation of social norms and values, arguing that they caused a taming of the nuclear catastrophe as well as reflecting and reinforcing a specific political and historically situated understanding of social urban order and the good society.

Geoscientists Can Help Reduce the Threat of Nuclear Weapons

A nuclear war would claim many lives from its direct impacts and cause rapid climate change that would further imperil humanity. Scientists can help shape policies to put us on a safer path.