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Peter Goin: NUCLEAR LANDSCAPES
Goin, Peter: NUCLEAR LANDSCAPES
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins, 1991. First edition.
The Atomic Energy Commission, shortly after Word War II, recommended that a 640 square mile "testing ground" be carved out of the 5,400 square mile gunnery range in use by the military in southern Nevada. The testing of nuclear weapons was considered essential to national security, and President Truman authorized the opening of the Nevada Test Site on December 18, 1950. The first atmospheric test at the new site was conducted at Frenchman's Flat on January 27, 1951. Hanford and White Bluffs, Washington had already been "condemned," paving the way for the construction of facilities manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium.
One hundred and nineteen tests were conducted until a moratorium was established from 1958 to 1961. Until the United States and the Soviet Union signed a limited test ban treaty on August 5, 1963, another one hundred and two "devices" were detonated. Since 1963, however, all explosions have been underground.
Just as information about the harmful effects of radiation was scarce, the folklore about everything nuclear exploded. Contemporary dances, drinks, and even the "bikini" owe their namesakes to the nuclear age. Although many Nevadans remember driving to the roadside along Highway 95 to watch the blasts, the test site itself is strictly OFF LIMITS. Rarely have photographers been allowed to document the visual effects of the nuclear tests, and if so, their results were considered secret and confidential.
These photographs are the product of a rare opportunity to photograph within the nuclear lands. The artifacts and sites throughout these nuclear lands represent icons in the range of myth and political ritual surrounding the nuclear age. This project contains these main sites: Nevada's Nuclear Test Site, the Trinity Site in New Mexico, the Hanford Nuclear Area in Washington, and recently, the Marshall Islands' sites of Bikini and Enewetak Atolls. Johns Hopkins University Press published Nuclear Landscapes.
From unr.edu.
From Library Journal
Since 1945, over 700 nuclear tests have taken place on American soil alone. Through carefully composed color photographs, Goin documents the lasting damage from nuclear explosions at several sites. The antithesis of classic landscapes, these photographs present haunted landscapes understandably devoid of habitation, with colors leached out and the land permanently laid waste. Viewers thus feel the need to step lightly; there is a tendency to hold one's breath. The photographs are accompanied by an informative and balanced text, and each is infused with the ghost of what this land once was. This extremely important book should be given a highly visible place in school, public, and academic libraries.
- Raymond Bial, Parkland Coll. Lib., Champaign, Ill.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"With great courage (many of the sites are still radioactive) and a trained eye, [Goin] captures for us all the true cost of nuclear supremacy with extraordinary color photographs... at once stunning and chilling, presenting powerful visual icons of the nuclear age." --Michael Toms, New Dimensions
"A stunning look at the effects of America's love affair with the atom." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Near Fine with Near Fine jacket. Corners lightly bumped. Dust jacket has a 1/2" invisible closed tear at upper front, very slight age-darkening
$300.00
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