Nuclear Culture

Paul Loeb's Nuclear Culture: Living & Working in the World's Largest Atomic Complex explores how individuals who manufactured weapons of atomic destruction at Hanford, Washington, the world's largest nuclear complex, justified their work--and by extension how all of us suppress or confront the critical issues of our time. "I could have been making lightbulbs," they explained. "I could have been working in a coal plant." "If the men who know best say we need the bombs, my job is to make the plants work the best I can."

"Vivid, sympathetic and chilling to the bone."--The Chicago Tribune

"As briliant as it is disturbing. The dangers of banality that threaten our sanityand existence have rarely been so vividly portrayed."--Studs Terkel

"Most disturbing."--The Washington Post

"An important book, wisely done. A lot of smart people who have some influence on the course of history will read and admire it--and learn from it."--Kurt Vonnegut

"A disturbing lesson: those most directly involved in nuclear work are often those who think least about its implications."--The Christian Science Monitor

"Drawing on interviews, training manuals, and his own powers of observation, Loeb presents a chilling portrait of this 'reservation,' where the makings of a global holocaust accumulate hour by hour."--Scott Russell Sanders, The Progressive

"An intimate investigation. [The workers are] uncritical and fiercely protective of 'atom city,' even at the expense of their own health and safety."--Los Angeles Times

"Enjoyable and educational. It entertains as it stimulates serious thought...[Loeb] may well succeed in sturring the coals under a few of the rest of us, who wonder from our own ideal family towns just why the nuclear threat lives on."--Greenpeace

"Disturbing, fact-laden and just plain interesting. The questions raised lie at the core of continued human survival."--John Nichols, The Dallas Times-Herald