Publication Date 16/11/21 Audio Time 12hrs 53 mins, Book 395 Pages
Synopsis
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Pincus exposes the darkest secret in American nuclear history--sixty-seven nuclear tests in the South Pacific's Marshall Islands that decimated a people and their land. The most important place in American nuclear history are the Marshall Islands--an idyllic Pacific paradise that served as the staging ground for over sixty US nuclear tests. It was here, from 1946 to 1958, that America perfected the weapon that preserved the peace of the post-war years. It was here--with the 1954 Castle Bravo test over Bikini Atoll--that America executed its largest nuclear detonation, a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima. And it was here that a native people became unwilling test subjects in the first large scale study of nuclear radiation fallout when the ashes rained down on powerless villagers, contaminating the land they loved and forever changing a way of life. In Blown to Hell, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Walter Pincus tells for the first time the tragic story of the Marshallese people caught in the crosshairs of American nuclear testing. From John Anjain, a local magistrate of Rongelap Atoll who loses more than most; to the radiation-exposed crew of the Japanese fishing boat the Lucky Dragon; to Dr. Robert Conard, a Navy physician who realized the dangers facing the islanders and attempted to help them; to the Washington power brokers trying to keep the unthinkable fallout from public view . . . Blown to Hell tells the human story of America's nuclear testing program. Displaced from the only homes they had known, the native tribes that inhabited the serene Pacific atolls for millennia before they became ground zero for America's first thermonuclear detonations returned to homes despoiled by radiation--if they were lucky enough to return at all. Others were ripped from their ancestral lands and shuttled to new islands with little regard for how the new environment supported their way of life and little acknowledgement of all they left behind. But not even the disruptive relocations allowed the islanders to escape the fallout.
My Review
This book was really good and very informative about America's first nuclear bomb testing in the Marshal Islands. You could tell this book was very well researched and contains plenty of shocking facts. It looks at how they didn't fully understand the power and how wide an area the bombs were going to affect nor fully understand the impacts of the nuclear fall out or even plan for the cost of the actual clean up. It compares the price of this clean up to the one at chenobyl disaster. I listened to the audiobook and could see why the publishers picked the narrator as he had a very military air to his voice. However, this did mean it was slightly dry and to the point. This lead to me struggling a little to warm to him. This was the only reason it lost a star. The facts and the way this book was written was just amazing. I really did feel like I had learnt a lot and now have a far better understanding of the use and affects of nuclear warfare. I am so glad I found this book as I love learning about controversial subjects especially history and military history from Different and this book was perfect for this. I really do recommend this book for that reason. Many thanks to the author and publishers for producing this spectacular and shocking military history book.
Where you can buy this book
Amazon US Kindle $17.83 Available on Audible Hardcover $19.61
Waterstones Hardcover £27.99
Barnes and Nobles Hardcover $29.99
Kobo Audio £14.38 or free with trial ebook £11.59
Amazon UK Kindle £13.38 Available on Audible Hardcover £18.29
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