Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America's Half-C

Boyer's most recent contribution to the history of the atomic bomb is an amalgam of newspaper and magazine articles, book reviews, conference papers and personal reflections, all dealing with the political, social, psychological and cultural resonance--the ""fallout""--of the bomb from August 1945 to the present. This work differs from his two previous book-length engagements of the atomic subject--By the Bomb's Early Light and When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture--in that here, Boyer writes not only from the perspective of a cultural historian, but also as a concerned citizen and sometime antinuclear activist. The scope is far-reaching: One section looks at Truman's thinking about the bomb, both public and private, as a way to understand the development of the broader response of the American people in the late 1940s and beyond. Another segment suggests the intersection of prophecy belief (like that of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Billy Graham) in a foretold nuclear Armageddon and the formation of nuclear policy during the Reagan administration. Other pieces look at the wide variety of cultural expressions related to the atomic subject, ranging from Dr. Strangelove to recent video games. In a fine closing essay, Boyer draws on the controversy over the 1995 Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian to suggest the still unsettled and unsettling position that Hiroshima and Nagasaki hold in our national psyche. The author's organization and presentation of his diverse material is skillful as always, making this informative, engaging and perhaps most important for Boyer, provocative. (May)