Nuclear Barons by Peter Pringle

Nuclear Barons Reviews

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  Chris

  "The Nuclear Barons" is an excellent international history of the development of nuclear technology and of the expert communities who administered its rise and decline (up to 1980) in the global West. Pringle and Spigelman argue that these communities exercised enormous political and economic power in poorly-planned pursuit of military and civilian visions of nuclear-centric futures. These communities faced a highly pessimistic and uncertain future (again, from the perspective of the early 1980s) as the consequences of overpromising the capabilities of nuclear technology and the rise of scientifically-informed opposition movements threatened future development plans. What Pringle and Spigelman managed to put together in these pages is roughly a nuclear equivalent to Yergin's "The Prize."