Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: March 25, 2021 at 9:57:38 AM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]: McGuffie on Genay, 'Land of Nuclear > Enchantment: A New Mexican History of the Nuclear Weapons Industry' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Lucie Genay. Land of Nuclear Enchantment: A New Mexican History of > the Nuclear Weapons Industry. Albuquerque University of New Mexico > Press, 2019. 344 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8263-6013-7. > > Reviewed by Joshua McGuffie (UCLA) > Published on H-War (March, 2021) > Commissioned by Margaret Sankey > > Los Alamos, a shining laboratory city upon a hill. Alamogordo, the > test site in the heart of an inhospitable desert wasteland. Sandia > Labs, a weapons assembly line at home amid Albuquerque's suburban > sprawl. Countless adits and shafts dotting the hills, gateways into > vast uranium deposits near towns like Grants and Shiprock. The Waste > Isolation Pilot Plant, a great tomb for transuranic waste bored out > of a massive subterranean salt formation. More pervasively than any > other state, New Mexico bears the imprint of American atomic > aspirations on its landscape. > > In _Land of Nuclear Enchantment_ Lucie Genay crafts an overtly > nuclear history of New Mexico. She relies on oral histories, using a > host of personal reflections and reminiscences to move her narrative > along. Genay brings an outsider's sensibilities to the work. She left > her native France to spend a year studying in the state. The > University of New Mexico put its mark on her project. Many of her > oral histories come from the university's 1991 "Impact Los Alamos: > Traditional New Mexico in the High Tech World" project, directed by > Carlos Vásquez. Of all the book's contributions to the literature, > the broad swath of firsthand stories stands out. > > Genay thinks in terms of conquest and colonization to do her > analytical work. In her scheme, the labs, factories, mines, and > repositories that dot the New Mexican landscape make up the material > stuff of a scientific conquest. The social and economic interactions > between New Mexicans--Native American, Hispano, and Anglo--and the > nuclear émigrés to the state exist in a colonial framework in which > "the federal government ... imposed outcomes according to the logics > of military priorities" (p. 14). Thinking in this way, Genay stands > squarely in the tradition of new Western historians working to > spotlight men and women who have been left out of canonical > histories. "Local residents," she reminds her readers, "have > contributed to the success of the Labs, to the profits made by the > uranium industry ... to America's military supremacy, and to the > advancement of science" (p. 5). > > The story starts out rosy enough. Genay walks her readers through New > Mexico's agrarian past. Then she explains how Native Americans living > in pueblos in the Española Valley and Hispano farmers, whose > ancestors came to the New World when Madrid governed the territory, > experienced economic opportunities when Los Alamos opened. Of course, > these locals never could compete for top-flight jobs "on the Hill." > Still, federal largesse--the nuclear golden goose--meant employment > and stability. South of the vaunted lab, Anglo ranchers gave up their > homesteads for the expanding White Sands Proving Ground with the > promise of compensation and an eventual postwar return to their > property. In their loss, many felt they were doing their patriotic > duty. > > The July 16, 1945, Trinity Test made wartime contingencies permanent. > Ranchers learned they would not go home. Los Alamos grew, drawing a > new host of scientists to the site. Sandia Lab popped up on the edge > of Albuquerque to complement Los Alamos. The atom and its social > consequences were in New Mexico to stay. > > But the lustrous new nuclear installations quickly tarnished under > the desert sun. Genay documents how, for Native American and Hispano > workers at Los Alamos, the lack of opportunity for them and their > children to move up in the corporate structure began to displace a > sense that the lab had lifted them out of agrarian poverty. Even as > educational opportunities opened up for local New Mexicans in the > 1950s, a feeling of inferiority remained when they compared > themselves to the Anglos recruited from out of state to work at the > lab. > > As the decades passed, new health and environmental concerns became > part and parcel of the atomic project in New Mexico. Native American > uranium miners and millers in the west of the state began to get > sick. Children who grew up near Alamogordo experienced uncommon > cancers. New cancers cropped up around Los Alamos too, where children > played in old waste dumps with names like Acid Canyon. Workers whose > economic livelihoods relied on the atomic establishment began to ask > questions. Many received unsatisfying answers from lab administrators > and federal nuclear bureaucrats. Genay recounts one Native American > worker at Los Alamos saying, "in the old days, LANL [Los Alamos > National Laboratory] workers were given cigarettes at pay day, sort > of like a bonus. Now, the Lab blames the cancer on the smoking" (p. > 185). > > Genay's story is ultimately one of disenchantment with the nuclear > program and its constellation of labs, plants, test sites, mines, and > waste dumps across New Mexico. Proponents of the nuclear program will > likely find fault with her ultimate analysis that its costs outweigh > its benefits. Nuclear detractors will find a welcome addition to the > literature. Regardless of the reader's viewpoint, Genay's > contribution of so many oral histories in this piece enhances the > depth and breadth of atomic history in New Mexico and the West. > > Citation: Joshua McGuffie. Review of Genay, Lucie, _Land of Nuclear > Enchantment: A New Mexican History of the Nuclear Weapons Industry_. > H-War, H-Net Reviews. March, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56066 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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