The Ambivalence of Nuclear Histories
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3201565 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Itty Abraham (0000-0002-1604-0002, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 49-65 |
| Publication date | 2006-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Osiris (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0369-7827 • E-ISSN: 1933-8287 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/507135 |
| OpenAlex | W2029844676 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 33 |
| References cited | 5 |
This chapter argues that a discourse of “control,” authored by the overlapping narratives of academic proliferation studies and U.S. anti‐proliferation policy, has come to dominate our understanding of nuclear histories. This discourse, with its primary purpose of seeking to predict which countries are likely to build nuclear weapons and thereby to threaten the prevailing military‐strategic status quo, has narrowed the gaze of nuclear historians. Among its effects has been to minimize the importance of the discovery of atomic fission as a “world historical” event and to impoverish our recognition of the fluidity of international affairs in the decade following the end of the Second World War. This chapter concerns the tendency to see nuclear histories as, above all, national histories and to privilege concerns about the development of nuclear weapons over a fuller and more nuanced understanding of what nuclear programs mean and why they matter. Paying attention to the scientific‐technological underpinnings of nuclear programs offers an alternative path, opening up new archives and insights into the making of “national” nuclear programs that might have important other, even nonbelligerent, ends. This chapter points to the varieties and importance of international collaboration in the making of “national” programs, and shows how weapons building is by no means a universal end of all nuclear programs
Ambivalence · Environmental ethics · Nuclear ethics · Nuclear weapon · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Nuclear Issues and Defense · Psychology · Social Psychology · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments
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Approaching Irreversibility in Global Nuclear Politics
Jesting with a Double-Edge Sword
The Myth of the “Poor Man's Atomic Bomb”
Nuclear Weapons Scholarship as a Case of Self-Censorship in Security Studies
Nuclear Onco-Politics
Africa and the Nuclear World
L’invention du « nucléaire japonais »
Carnation Atoms? A History of Nuclear Energy in Portugal
Nation-Building and the Governance of Emerging Technologies
Narrative and nuclear weapons politics
U.S. Policy to Curb West European Nuclear Exports, 1974–1978
The Pugwash Conferences and the Global Cold War
Atomic Ayatollahs
Nuclear norms in global governance
India-Pakistan nuclear diplomacy
Les émergents et la prolifération nucléaire. Une illustration des biais téléologiques en relations internationales et de leurs effets
On whiteness in critical security studies
Everyday nuclear histories and futures in the Middle East, 1945–1948
Introducing ν -CLEAR
Remote assessment of countries’ nuclear, biological, and cyber capabilities
Three tons of uranium from the International Atomic Energy Agency
Whose India? Site and the origins of satellite television in India
The co-production of nuclear science and diplomacy
The Peaceful Origins of North Korea's Nuclear Programme in the Cold War Period, 1945–1965
Les liaisons dangereuses
The Perils of Predicting Proliferation
Importing the Bomb
Techno-Racial dynamics of denial & difference in weapons control
The Causes of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Who speaks (nuclear) security on behalf of the international community
Nuclear politics
| Unique citing works | 33 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,94 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2026 (18) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 32 |