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Frenchman Flat: The Rise and Fall of Atomic Bombs

byJon Else

Jon Else traces the nuclear age through a single test explosion: Priscilla, detonated above Nevada’s Frenchman Flat in 1957. The bomb becomes a route into the lives of scientists, soldiers, civilians, and campaigners who built, witnessed, endured, or resisted the expanding American arsenal. Drawing on interviews and historical research, Else connects technological achievement with secrecy, environmental damage, and the human costs of radioactive fallout. His account follows the movement toward arms control while asking how societies learned to live with weapons capable of destroying the world they were meant to defend.

Publisher

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press

Publication date

2026-09-08

Format

Hardcover

Pages

464

ISBN

9780674300354