num_pages: 456
description: 'The atomic bomb. As ominous as the atomic legacy itself, these words conjure a stark image of a mushroom cloud, devastation, and death by radiation. Code-named the Manhattan Project, the detailed plans for developing an atomic bomb were impelled by urgency and shrouded in secrecy. The Manhattan Engineer District, the coded designation for the numerous sites where the volatile bomb components were developed, included not only university laboratories, but also geographically remote locations where civilians and scientists clashed with the requirements of military culture. "Atomic Spaces" tells the story of the project's three key Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. Drawing from tens of thousands of never-before-studied documents, from house plans to medical records, Peter Bacon Hales trains a cultural historian's eye on the worlds within the fences'.'The result is a bold, graphic reinterpretation of these sites and the larger issues they the clashes between ideals of obedience and freedom, efficiency and democracy. Out of these, Hales proposes, came a new form of American culture. Creating an atomic bomb was an utterly new, dangerous, and urgent mission, one that seemed to justify ignoring known environmental hazards, downplaying dangers, and covering up accidents; yet as part of our atomic legacy, some of these wartime imperatives endure in peacetime practices in the military and defense industries. Peter Bacon Hales, a professor of art history and director of the American Studies Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of "Silver The Photography of American Urbanization, 1839-1915 and William Henry Jackson and the Transformation of the American Landscape"'.
language: English
title: Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project
titlecomplete: Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project
genres: Nonfiction, History
ratings_count: 21
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY)
category: History/Politics/Current Events (Finalist), awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Herbert Hoover Book Award
publisher: University of Illinois Press