It’s (roughly) that time of the year again: my annual nuclear history bibliography for the previous year. (It’s a little later than usual this time around, but I’ve been busy teaching and writing.) The game is more or less the same as it was for 2014, 2013, and 2012: I’ve tried to compile any and all references to scholarly or at least semi-scholarly articles and books I’ve founded that were published in 2015 that would be relevant and of interest to those people (like myself) who consider themselves interested in “nuclear history,” construed broadly. As before, I’ve avoided listing websites (except the Electronic Briefing Bulletins of the National Security Archive, because they are a really uniquely valuable form of “publication”), have avoided anything that was simply an updated edition of a book published prior to 2015, and have stuck mostly to scholarly articles (with my own publications being an exception, because, well, I made the list).
The hands of the censor: Charles L. Marshall, Director of Classification, declassifying a document as part of the Atomic Energy Commission’s 1971-1976 “declassification drive.” Click the image for the full-sized version. Source: Nuclear Testing Archive, Las Vegas, Nevada, document NV0148015.
This list is no doubt missing a lot, but it’s a start. If you think I missed something, or think something ought not be on here, add it as a comment below (comments that are just references will be read but probably not “approved” — consider them just a way to send me a quick message). I have not read the vast majority of the references below (one only has so much time…), and do not vouch for them in any way. In most cases, I’ve just glanced enough to confirm that they seem to have a historical component that relates to nuclear technology.
The list was compiled by (tediously) searching through broad keyword searches in a variety of online databases, along with looking at the titles and abstracts of specific journals that are known to carry a lot of this sort of thing.
In the past, it has usually taken about a week for this list to fully stabilize, as people remind me of all the things I’ve missed. So check back then if you want the most up-to-date version. (I will also update the 2014 bibliography at the same time, with a few extra references I found.) At that point, I will also post the bibtex and RIS version for those who want to import these into a citation manager. Note that some of the processing below is done mechanically (I export from Zotero then use PHP to clean up the links/etc. because it is easier than figuring out how to modify Zotero’s internal style sheets), so there may be a few weird little bugs related to that here and there.
And if you’re bored to death by bibliographies — don’t worry. I’m starting up the regular blog posts again next week.
BOOKS
Barney, Timothy. Mapping the Cold War: Cartography and the Framing of America’s International Power. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Bartosch, Ulrich. Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker: Pioneer of Physics, Philosophy, Religion, Politics and Peace Research. 21. Springer International Publishing, 2015.
Baylis, John, and Kristan Stoddart. The British Nuclear Experience: The Roles of Beliefs, Culture and Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Bridger, Sarah. Scientists at War: The Ethics of Cold War Weapons Research. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Brown, Robert. Nuclear Authority: The IAEA and the Absolute Weapon. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2015.
Burr, William, and Jeffrey P. Kimball. Nixon’s Nuclear Specter : The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War. Modern War Studies. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2015.
Campos, Luis A. Radium and the Secret of Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Chapman, Jane, Dan Ellin, and Adam Sherif. Comics, the Holocaust and Hiroshima. Holocaust and Its Contexts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Close, F. E. Half-Life : The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2015.1
Dalhouski, Aliaksandr. Tschernobyl in Belarus: ökologische Krise Und Sozialer Kompromiss (1986-1996). [Chernobyl in Belarus: Ecological crisis and social compromise (1986-1996)]. Historische Belarus-Studien. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015.
Day, Michael A. The Hope and Vision of J Robert Oppenheimer. World Scientific, 2015.
Drell, Sidney D., and George P. Shultz, eds. Andrei Sakharov: The Conscience of Humanity. Hoover Institution Press, 2015.
Edwards, Matthew, ed. The Atomic Bomb in Japanese Cinema: Critical Essays. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2015.
Ford, Kenneth W. Building the H Bomb: A Personal History. Hackensack, New Jersey: World Scientific, 2015.2
Freeman, Lindsey A. Longing for the Bomb: Oak Ridge and Atomic Nostalgia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Futter, Andrew. The Politics of Nuclear Weapons. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2015.
Gruntman, Mike. Intercept 1961 : The Birth of Soviet Missile Defense. Library of Flight. Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., 2015.
Hanel, Tilmann. Die Bombe als Option : Motive für den Aufbau einer atomtechnischen Infrastruktur in der Bundesrepublik bis 1963. [The bomb as an option: Motivation for establishing a nuclear infrastructure in the Federal Republic of Germany until 1963]. Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2015.
Hecht, David K. Storytelling and Science : Rewriting Oppenheimer in the Nuclear Age. Science/technology/culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2015.
Hennessy, Peter. The Silent Deep: A History of the Royal Navy Submarine Service Since 1945. Allen Lane, 2015.
Hiltzik, Michael A. Big Science : Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015.3
Intondi, Vincent. African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015.
Jacobsen, Annie. The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015.
Kaplan, Edward. To Kill Nations : American Strategy in the Air-Atomic Age and the Rise of Mutually Assured Destruction. Ithaca: Cornell University, 2015.
Katayev, Vitaly Leonidovich. A Memoir of the Missile Age : One Man’s Journey. Hoover Institution Press Publication ; 622. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 2015.
Krepinevich, Andrew F., Barry Watts, and Barry D. Watts. The Last Warrior: Andrew Marshall and the Shaping of Modern American Defense Strategy. New York: Basic Books, 2015.
Krooth, Richard, Morris Edelson, Hiroshi Fukurai, Morris Edelson, and Hiroshi Fukurai. Nuclear Tsunami: The Japanese Government and America’s Role in the Fukushima Disaster. New York: Lexington Books, 2015.
Kultgen, John. Abolition of Nuclear Weapons as a Moral Imperative. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.
Kunetka, James W. The General and the Genius : Groves and Oppenheimer — The Unlikely Partnership That Built the Atom Bomb. Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2015.
Larabee, Ann. The Wrong Hands: Popular Weapons Manuals and Their Historic Challenges to a Democratic Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Malin, Stephanie A. The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2015.
McLaren, Alfred Scott. Silent and Unseen: On Patrol in Three Cold War Attack Submarines. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2015.
Middleton, Peter. Physics Envy : American Poetry and Science in the Cold War and after. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Mills, David W. Cold War in a Cold Land: Fighting Communism on the Northern Plains. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015.
Nuti, Leopoldo, Frédéric Bozo, Marie-Pierre Rey, and Bernd Rother. The Euromissile Crisis and the End of the Cold War. Cold War International History Project Series. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2015.
O’Brian, John, ed. Camera Atomica. London: Black Dog Publishing Ltd, 2015.
Perry, William James. My Journey at the Nuclear Brink. Stanford Security Studies. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.
Phillips, Christopher J. The New Math: A Political History. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2014.
Quester, George H. Nuclear Zero?: Lessons from the Last Time We Were There. New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2015.
Sauer, Frank. Atomic Anxiety: Deterrence, Taboo and the Non-Use of U.S. Nuclear Weapons. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Schirach, Richard von. The Night of the Physicists: Operation Epsilon: Heisenberg, Hahn, Weizsäcker and the German Bomb. Translated by Simon Pare. London: Haus Publishing, 2015.
Schmid, Sonja D. Producing Power the Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015.
Schwarz, Frederick A.O. Democracy in the Dark : The Seduction of Government Secrecy. New York: The New Press, 2015.
Siracusa, Joseph M. Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction. 2nd (revised) edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Southard, Susan. Nagasaki : Life after Nuclear War. New York: Viking, 2015.
Thakur, Ramesh Chandra. Nuclear Weapons and International Security : Collected Essays. Routledge Global Security Studies. New York: Routledge, 2015.
Tudda, Chris. Cold War Summits: A History, from Potsdam to Malta. New Approaches to International History. London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015.
Voyles, Traci Brynne. Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
ARTICLES
Albertson, Trevor D. “Ready for the Worst: Preemption, Prevention and American Nuclear Policy.” Air Power History 62, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 30–39.
Avey, Paul C. “Who’s Afraid of the Bomb? The Role of Nuclear Non-Use Norms in Confrontations between Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Opponents.” Security Studies 24, no. 4 (October 2, 2015): 563–96. (link)
Babiarz, Renny. “The People’s Nuclear Weapon: Strategic Culture and the Development of China’s Nuclear Weapons Program.” Comparative Strategy 34, no. 5 (October 20, 2015): 422–46. (link)
Barnett, Nicholas. “‘No Protection against the H-Bomb’: Press and Popular Reactions to the Coventry Civil Defence Controversy, 1954.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 277–300. (link)
Bartel, Fritz. “Surviving the Years of Grace: The Atomic Bomb and the Specter of World Government, 1945–1950.” Diplomatic History 39, no. 2 (April 1, 2015): 275–302. (link)
Brown, Kate. “Securing the Nuclear Nation.” Nationalities Papers 43, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 8–26. (link)
Budjeryn, Mariana. “The Power of the NPT: International Norms and Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament.” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 203–37. (link)
Callaghan, John, and Mark Phythian. “Intellectuals of the Left and the Atomic Dilemma in the Age of the US Atomic Monopoly, 1945–1949.” Contemporary British History 29, no. 4 (October 2, 2015): 441–63. (link)
Campus, Leonardo. “Missiles Have No Colour: African Americans’ Reactions to the Cuban Missile Crisis.” Cold War History 15, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 49–72. (link)
Cittadino, Eugene. “Paul Sears and the Plowshare Advisory Committee: ‘Subversive’ Ecologist Endorses Nuclear Excavation?” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 45, no. 3 (June 1, 2015): 397–446. (link)
Clohesy, Lachlan, and Phillip Deery. “The Prime Minister and the Bomb: John Gorton, W.C. Wentworth and the Quest for an Atomic Australia.” Australian Journal of Politics & History 61, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 217–32. (link)
Cram, Shannon. “Becoming Jane: The Making and Unmaking of Hanford’s Nuclear Body.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33, no. 5 (October 1, 2015): 796–812. (link)
Creager, Angela N. H. “Radiation, Cancer, and Mutation in the Atomic Age.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 45, no. 1 (February 1, 2015): 14–48. (link)
Deaile, Melvin G. “The SAC Mentality.” Air & Space Power Journal 29, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 48–73.
DeRoche, Andy. “Asserting African Agency: Kenneth Kaunda and the USA, 1964-1980.” Diplomatic History (Advance Access), September 27, 2015. (link)
de Sá, Andrea. “Brazil’s Nuclear Submarine Program.” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 3–25. (link)
Doyle, Thomas E. “Hiroshima and Two Paradoxes of Japanese Nuclear Perplexity.” Critical Military Studies 1, no. 2 (June 4, 2015): 160–73. (link)
Drogan, Mara. “The Nuclear Imperative: Atoms for Peace and the Development of U.S. Policy on Exporting Nuclear Power, 1953-1955.” Diplomatic History (Advance Access), September 18, 2015. (link)
———. “The Nuclear Nation and the German Question: An American Reactor in West Berlin.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 301–19. (link)
Dwyer, Greg, and William Wanderer. “Reflections on Transparency and Monitoring under the 1993 United States-Russian Federation Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement.”The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 165–83. (link)
Dylan, Huw. “Operation TIGRESS: Deception for Counterintelligence and Britain’s 1952 Atomic Test.” Journal of Intelligence History 14, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 1–15. (link)
———. “Super-Weapons and Subversion: British Deterrence by Deception Operations in the Early Cold War.” Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 5 (July 29, 2015): 704–28. (link)
Elli, Mauro. “Callaghan, the British Government and the N-Bomb Controversy.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 321–39. (link)
Fardella, Enrico Maria. “Mao Zedong and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.” Cold War History 15, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 73–88. (link)
Fletcher, Luke. “The Collapse of the Western World: Acheson, Nitze and the NSC 68/Rearmament Decision.” Diplomatic History (Advance Access), February 17, 2015. (link)
Gallagher, Michael J. “Intelligence and National Security Strategy: Reexamining Project Solarium.” Intelligence and National Security 30, no. 4 (July 4, 2015): 461–85. (link)
Geist, Edward. “Political Fallout: The Failure of Emergency Management at Chernobyl’.” Slavic Review 74, no. 1 (2015): 104–26. (link)
Geraskin, Nikolay I., Andrey A. Krasnoborodko, Vasily B. Glebov, and Taisia A. Piskureva. “Nuclear Security Culture Enhancement: The Role of Culture Coordinators at Russian Nuclear Sites.” Defense & Security Analysis 31, no. 4 (October 2, 2015): 330–45. (link)
Gormley, Melinda, and Melissae Fellet. “The Pauling – Teller Debate: A Tangle of Expertise and Values.” Issues in Science & Technology 31, no. 4 (Summer 2015): 78–82.
Grace, Katja. “Leó Szilárd and the Danger of Nuclear Weapons: A Case Study in Risk Mitigation.” Berkeley, CA: Machine Intelligence Research Institute, October 3, 2015. (link)4
Gribble, Richard. “Jake Laboon: First Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine Chaplain, 1959–1961.” Journal of Church and State 57, no. 3 (September 1, 2015): 529–50. (link)
Hanel, Tilmann, and Mikael Hård. “Inventing Traditions: Interests, Parables and Nostalgia in the History of Nuclear Energy.” History and Technology 31, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 84–107. (link)
Hill, Christopher R. “Nations of Peace: Nuclear Disarmament and the Making of National Identity in Scotland and Wales.” Twentieth Century British History (Advance Access), October 24, 2015. (link)
Israeli, Ofer. “Israel’s Nuclear Amimut Policy and Its Consequences.” Israel Affairs 21, no. 4 (October 2, 2015): 541–58. (link)
Kaiser, David, and Benjamin Wilson. “American Scientists as Public Citizens: 70 Years of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 13–25. (link)
Kaplow, Jeffrey. “The Canary in the Nuclear Submarine: Assessing the Nonproliferation Risk of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Loophole.” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 185–202. (link)
Kasperski, Tatiana. “Nuclear Dreams and Realities in Contemporary Russia and Ukraine.” History and Technology 31, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 55–80. (link)
Kelly, Cynthia C. “The Making of the Manhattan Project Park.” Public Interest Report (Federation of American Scientists) 68, no. 1 (Winter 2015). (link)
Krige, John. “Euratom and the IAEA: The Problem of Self-Inspection.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 341–52. (link)
Kroenig, Matthew. “The History of Proliferation Optimism: Does It Have a Future?” Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 1–2 (January 2, 2015): 98–125. (link)
Leighton, Marian K. “The ‘Star Wars’ Murders: Revisiting a Cold Case from the Cold War.” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 28, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 290–318. (link)
Leslie, Stuart W. “Pakistan’s Nuclear Taj Mahal.” Physics Today 68, no. 2 (February 1, 2015): 40–46. (link)
Levey, Zach. “The United States, Israel, and Nuclear Desalination: 1964–1968.” Diplomatic History 39, no. 5 (November 1, 2015): 904–25. (link)
Martin, Scott C. “Air Force Intelligence Support to Nuclear Operations: Pre and Post-Incident.” Air Power History 62, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 40–49.
Masco, Joseph. “Nuclear Pasts, Nuclear Futures; Or, Disarming through Rebuilding.” Critical Studies on Security 3, no. 3 (September 2, 2015): 308–12. (link)
———. “The Age of Fallout.” History of the Present 5, no. 2 (2015): 137–68. (link)
Mian, Zia. “Out of the Nuclear Shadow: Scientists and the Struggle against the Bomb.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 59–69. (link)
Miles, Simon. “Envisioning Détente: The Johnson Administration and the October 1964 Khrushchev Ouster.” Diplomatic History, August 14, 2015, dhv035. (link)
Neiman, Susan. “Forgetting Hiroshima, Remembering Auschwitz Tales of Two Exhibits.” Thesis Eleven 129, no. 1 (August 1, 2015): 7–26. (link)
Norris, Robert S., and Hans M. Kristensen. “Counting Nuclear Warheads in the Public Interest.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 85–90. (link)
Nuti, Leopoldo, and Christian Ostermann. “Introduction (to Special Issue: Nuclear History and the Cold War: Trajectories of Research).” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 273–76. (link)
Pabian, Frank V. “The South African Denuclearization Exemplar.” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 27–52. (link)
Pajo, Judi. “Danger Explodes, Space Implodes: The Evolution of the Environmental Discourse on Nuclear Waste, 1945–1969.” Energy, Sustainability and Society 5, no. 1 (December 14, 2015): 36. (link)
Patti, Carlo. “The Origins of the Brazilian Nuclear Programme, 1951–1955.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 353–73. (link)
Pearson, J. Michael. “On the Belated Discovery of Fission.” Physics Today 68, no. 6 (June 1, 2015): 40–45. (link)
Pegg, Ian L. “Turning Nuclear Waste into Glass.” Physics Today 68, no. 2 (February 1, 2015): 33–39. (link)
Rakove, Robert B. “The Rise and Fall of Non-Aligned Mediation, 1961–6.” The International History Review 37, no. 5 (October 20, 2015): 991–1013. (link)
Reed, B. Cameron. “Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of the Manhattan Project: Questions and Answers.” Public Interest Report (Federation of American Scientists) 68, no. 1 (Winter 2015). (link)
Rhodes, Richard. “Why the Manhattan Project Should Be Preserved.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 6 (November 1, 2015): 4–10. (link)
Robinson, Todd C. “What Do We Mean by Nuclear Proliferation?” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 53–70. (link)
Rosenberg, John. “The Quest against Détente: Eugene Rostow, the October War, and the Origins of the Anti-Détente Movement, 1969–1976.” Diplomatic History 39, no. 4 (September 1, 2015): 720–44. (link)
Rush, John J. “US Neutron Facility Development in the Last Half-Century: A Cautionary Tale.” Physics in Perspective 17, no. 2 (June 2015): 135–55. (link)
Sarkar, Jayita. “The Making of a Non-Aligned Nuclear Power: India’s Proliferation Drift, 1964–8.” The International History Review 37, no. 5 (October 20, 2015): 933–50. (link)
———. “‘Wean Them Away from French Tutelage’: Franco-Indian Nuclear Relations and Anglo-American Anxieties during the Early Cold War, 1948–1952.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 375–94. (link)
Schletter, Julie. “Who Was Willy Higinbotham?” Public Interest Report (Federation of American Scientists) 68, no. 2 (Spring 2015). (link)
Schlosser, Eric. “Break-in at Y-12.” The New Yorker, March 9, 2015. (link)
Settle, Frank. “Marshall and the Atomic Bomb.” Public Interest Report (Federation of American Scientists) 68, no. 3 (Summer/Fall 2015). (link)
Shell, Hanna Rose, and Alex Wellerstein. “Technologist-Historian: Data Visualization Meets the Archive.” Technology and Culture 56, no. 1 (January 2015): 204–8. (link)
Siff, Sarah Brady. “Atomic Roaches and Test-Tube Babies Bentley Glass and Science Communication.” Journalism & Communication Monographs 17, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 88–144. (link)
Skinner, Rob. “Bombs and Border Crossings: Peace Activist Networks and the Post-Colonial State in Africa, 1959–62.” Journal of Contemporary History 50, no. 3 (July 1, 2015): 418–38. (link)
Szalai, András. “‘Essentially Sound and Fundamental’: Historicizing the Logic of Deterrence in the Counterforce Debate.” International Relations 29, no. 3 (September 1, 2015): 288–302. (link)
Torre, Joseba De la, and Maria del Mar Rubio-Varas. “Nuclear Power for a Dictatorship: State and Business Involvement in the Spanish Atomic Program, 1950–85.” Journal of Contemporary History, October 23, 2015, 0022009415599448. (link)
Tunc, Tanfer Emin. “Eating in Survival Town: Food in 1950s Atomic America.” Cold War History 15, no. 2 (April 3, 2015): 179–200. (link)
Valiunas, Algis. “The Man Who Thought of Everything.” The New Atlantis, no. 45 (2015): 60–97.
Van Munster, Rens, and Casper Sylvest. “Pro-Nuclear Environmentalism: Should We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Energy?” Technology and Culture 56, no. 4 (October 2015): 789–811.
van Wyk, Jo-Ansie. “Atoms, Apartheid, and the Agency: South Africa’s Relations with the IAEA, 1957–1995.” Cold War History 15, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 395–416. (link)
van Wyk, Jo-Ansie, and Anna-Mart van Wyk. “From the Nuclear Laager to the Non-Proliferation Club: South Africa and the NPT.” South African Historical Journal 67, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 32–46. (link)
Verzuh, Ron. “Canada’s A-Bomb Secret.” Canada’s History 95, no. 4 (September 8, 2015): 32–37.
Waters, Colin N., James P. M. Syvitski, Agnieszka Gałuszka, Gary J. Hancock, Jan Zalasiewicz, Alejandro Cearreta, Jacques Grinevald, et al. “Can Nuclear Weapons Fallout Mark the Beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 3 (May 1, 2015): 46–57. (link)
Wellerstein, Alex. “Nagasaki: The Last Bomb.” The New Yorker Elements Blog, August 7, 2015. (link)
———. “The First Light of Trinity.” The New Yorker Elements Blog, July 16, 2015. (link)
———. “The Race That Wasn’t [Essay Review of Graham Farmelo’s ‘Churchill’s Bomb’].” The Nonproliferation Review 22, no. 1 (January 2, 2015): 93–97. (link)
Wilson, Benjamin. “The Consultants: Nonlinear Optics and the Social World of Cold War Science.” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 45, no. 5 (November 1, 2015): 758–804. (link)
ELECTRONIC BRIEFING BOOKS
Below are some of the wonderful articles and document resources provided by the wonderful National Security Archive. They are one of the few reliably fascinating sources of nuclear history on the Internet, as well as an impressive wielder of the Freedom of Information Act, so I think they deserve their own special section here.
Diagram of the most up-to-date West German centrifuge machine from 1960, from a Union Carbide report. From National Security Archive’s Electronic Briefing Book No. 518.
- “Perestroika in the Soviet Union: 30 Years On,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 504, compiled and edited by Svetlana Savranskaya and Anna Melyakova (March 11, 2015).
- “New Memoir by Participant in U.S. H-Bomb Program Sheds Light on the Making of the First Test Device,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 507, compiled and edited by Kenneth W. Ford and William Burr (March 24, 2015).
- “International Atomic Energy Agency Lacks Transparency, Observers and Researchers Say,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 512, compiled and edited by Toby McIntosh and William Burr (April 24, 2015).
- “Nixon, Kissinger, and the Madman Strategy during Vietnam War,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 517, compiled and edited by William Burr and Jeffrey P. Kimball (May 29, 2015).
- “The Gas Centrifuge Secret: Origins of a U.S. Policy of Nuclear Denial, 1954-1960,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 518, compiled and edited by William Burr (June 29, 2015).
- “Iran’s Nuclear Program – Then and Now,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 521, compiled and edited by Malcolm Byrne and William Burr (July 14, 2015).
- “The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 525, compiled and edited by William Burr (updated August 4, 2015 for the 70th anniversary).
- “Kazakhstan and Nunn-Lugar: A Non-Proliferation Success Story,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 528, compiled and edited by Tom Blanton and Svetlana Savranskaya (August 29, 2015).
- “The United States and the Pakistani Bomb, 1984-1985: President Reagan, General Zia, Nazir Ahmed Vaid, and Seymour Hersh,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 531, compiled and edited by William Burr (October 14, 2015).
- “The 1983 War Scare Declassified and For Real,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 533, compiled and edited by Nate Jones, Tom Blanton, and Lauren Harper (October 24, 2015). (Part of the National Security Archive’s great set of articles about Able Archer 83.)
- “U.S. Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified for First Time,” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 538, compiled and edited by William Burr (December 22, 2015).
And, of course, if you want to review what I wrote on this blog in 2015, my Post Archives page makes this pretty easy.
- Reviewed by me for Science: “Physicist. Defector. Spy?“ [↩]
- Discussed by me in a blog post: “H-bomb Headaches.” [↩]
- Reviewed by me in Science (“Cult of the Machine“) and discussed in a blog post (“Did Lawrence Doubt the Bomb?“ [↩]
- I was interviewed for part of this study on Szilard’s early efforts to control the spread of nuclear information, and his role in the creation of the Uranium Committee. [↩]
