In an interview with George Mason University’s History News Network, professor Kate Brown shares her inspiration for her new book, Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters, which traces the parallel history of two cities in the Soviet Union and United States through the eyes and experiences of its plant workers and citizens.
To uphold secrecy during the nuclear arms race, both governments developed limited access “atomic cities,” and in exchange provided its citizens generous salaries, first-rate education and health care, and many other amenities of modern life. Brown calls these cities “Plutopias.” Unfortunately, as Brown describes, many workers and families found the hazards of working in and near nuclear production far outweighed any of the benefits.
“Trying to figure out how it was that so much radioactive waste was intentionally spilled with thousands of workers witnessing it, and no one in four decades blew a whistle about it—no one in the dictatorial USSR or democratic USA,” said Brown. “Why was that? I came to the idea that the answer existed in plutopia.”
Brown’s book was also referenced in a Dutch article on the history of the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
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