Doom Towns ─ The People and Landscapes of Atomic Testing, a Graphic History

The history of atomic testing is usually told as a story about big technology, big science, and complex global politics. Doom Towns: The People and Landscapes of Atomic Testing explains critical technological developments and the policies that drove weapons innovation within the context of the specific environments and communities where testing actually took place. The book emphasizes the people who participated, protested, or were affected by atomic testing and explains the decision-making process that resulted in these people and places becoming the only locations and groups to actually experience nuclear warfare during the Cold War. The graphic history presents various viewpoints directly linked to primary sources that reveal the complexity and uncertainty of this history to readers, while also providing evidence and access to archives to help them explore this controversial topic further and to reach their own informed conclusions about this history.

Andrew G. Kirk is Professor of Environmental and Western History at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is a coauthor of American Horizons (OUP, 2010), author of Counterculture Green (2007) and Collecting Nature (2001), and a Principal Investigator on the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project.

Kristian Purcell is an artist and illustrator based in Bedford, United Kingdom.