Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Western History and Biography: Atomic Frontier Days : Hanford and the American West (Paperback)

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Outstanding Title by Choice Magazine On the banks of the Pacific Northwest s greatest river lies the Hanford nuclear reservation an industrial site that appears to be at odds with the surrounding vineyards and desert. The 586-square-mile compound on the Columbia River is known both for its origins as part of the Manhattan Project which made the first atomic bombs and for the monumental effort now under way to clean up forty-five years of waste from manufacturing plutonium for nuclear weapons. Hanford routinely makes the news as scientists litigants administrators and politicians argue over its past and its future. It is easy to think about Hanford as an expression of federal power a place apart from humanity and nature but that view distorts its history. Atomic Frontier Days looks through a wider lens telling a complex story of production community building politics and environmental sensibilities. In brilliantly structured parallel stories the authors bridge the divisions that accompany Hanford s headlines and offer perspective on today s controversies. Influenced as much by regional culture economics and politics as by war diplomacy and environmentalism Hanford and the Tri-Cities of Richland Pasco and Kennewick illuminate the history of the modern American West.