---
product_id: 8189205
title: "Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters"
brand: "oxford university press"
price: "€ 37.61"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
category: "Book"
url: https://www.desertcart.pt/products/8189205-plutopia-nuclear-families-atomic-cities-and-the-great-soviet-american
store_origin: PT
region: Portugal
---

# Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters

**Brand:** oxford university press
**Price:** € 37.61
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by oxford university press
- **How much does it cost?** € 37.61 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.pt](https://www.desertcart.pt/products/8189205-plutopia-nuclear-families-atomic-cities-and-the-great-soviet-american)

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Excellent book - amazing how little the average person knows about these programs.
  

*by F***Z on Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2019*

Kate Brown has opened a new world that was right there and one that we never knew about.The history of the American and Soviet nuclear programs have been obfuscated and hidden in plain sight for years.She has brought the information to light for anyone who wants to learn just how horrible our governments and large companies such as Dupont, GE and others acted in their own self interests in the name of defense of our country.I would never have believed that our government would have done this so willingly to it's own citizens. The toxicity of the areas discussed, due to the contaminants and effluents that were all radioactive will continue to harm lives for millennia!. We have all been poisoned in one way or another and the toll this waste takes on us will continue.The book is well written and researched. Also in the same vein is "Manual for Survival" by the same author about the Chernobyl explosion and is another worthy read.If you read this book and are not incensed, there is a problem somewhere...

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Super History of Nuclear Madness
  

*by H***L on Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2019*

In the long annals of Cold War history, amidst the myriad tales of espionage, subversion, dirty deals and treachery,  none is more sordid than this tale of two supposedly diametrically opposed ideological systems mirroring each other in terms of deception, denial, disinformation and prosperity-induced blindness.  In their parallel obsessive paranoias, the USSR and the USA decided to create artificial communities designed to hermetically produce plutonium for the nuke arms race; Ozersk in Siberia for the Maiak plant and Richland, Washington, for the Hanford facility.  In both cases it was the state that supported these communities of plant workers, eventually insulating them from the unpleasant realities of the post war world, like minorities, village peasants, hard to find goods, lack of affordable housing, dangerous streets, etc.  In Richland the US government generously supplied the funds to turn the sleepy town of Richland into a well organized suburbia that would eventually festoon the American landscape, isolated communities where blacks an Mexicans need not apply, where you could leave your doors open at night and every face was that of a God fearing WASP. Ironically, most of Richland's inhabitants were bedrock conservatives who normally would rail at such unwarranted government largesse at taxpayer's expenses, but, as this book so well illustrates, principles and high sounding ideals usually take a back seat to creature comforts provided for free by someone else.  Even in supposedly egalitarian Russia, the inhabitants of Ozersk quickly assumed that the rights and privileges to enjoy benefits not available to other Soviet citizens was something intrinsic to their worth defending the motherland. In many cases those that abandoned the comforts of Ozersk soon found themselves imploring to return to the cocoon provided by the state. But as we know, Faustian bargains, while pleasant in the short term, usually have long term consequences.  The exigencies of the Cold War, coupled with the profits sought by bonus seeking American contractors or corrupt Soviet officials,  made safety a tangential concern at best. Adding to that, of course, was the nascent  beginnings of radiation science, which quickly found itself politicized. The meager research data on safe exposure levels that existed was usually cherrypicked, manipulated if not outright falsified to paint a rosy picture of work in a non-hazardous environment.  But with each discharge of radioactive waste, with every accident, with every concealment of exposure downwind, Faust's payments came due.  Cancers, autoimmune disorders, birth defects, dying livestock, all began to accumulate in the statistical forest growing around both  sites, though admittedly  the Soviet's disregard for even nominal safety precautions beggars belief.  But to the Russian;'s credit they at least attempted to remove populaces away form the most contaminated sites, something the US never attempted to do, preferring to litigate, litigate, litigate, deny, deny, deny until all the victims died off or settled for pittances. Indeed, reading this, it was hard to distinguish who was Russian and who was American in this book, as the Americans made very effort to out-Soviet the Soviets in terms of surveillance, intimidation and harassment of those who whistle blew about the numerous safety violations at Hanford.  Ms Brown even relates how the US government willfully exposed many people to high doses of radiation without their victim's knowledge in order to assess biological damage. That's the kind of things the Nazis did and were called war criminals for. But Americans called it all part of national security, thus whitewashing all sins. Seems lime we're hearing a lot of that these days also. She describes how the mounting evidence of incompetence at Hanford appeared to doom the plant to oblivion, until reprieves from the governor arrived in the form of the ex-California-governor-turned President  Reagan reviving the Cold War.  Nowadays Richland, at one point fearful of losing all their government goodies due to Hanford's proposed closing, is poised to make hay for decades to come as the laborious process of cleaning up the millions of curies of radioactive waste created by 50 years of MAD paranoia. The book concludes with a startling statistic, that cancer rates in the US in the period 1950-2001 have increased 85 %.  She makes no attempt to blame radiological contamination as the sole cause, correctly pointing it that the complex biological synergism of  chemicals, radiation, dietary and social factors all contribute.  She could have added microwave and electric transmission line radiation to that list, known biological hazards that receive little attention because of the grave threat negative statistics would pose to the telecommunication and electric utility industries. For anyone who thinks nuclear power has any future, this book is a stark reminder that dealing with Faust is usually not good for your health.  Highly recommended.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The history is intriguing
  

*by M***E on Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2019*

This book is well-researched and written.  It is a rather long read, but the parallels between the US and Russia development of making plutonium for atomic bombs is so interesting.  The history of the companies in the US that managed the plant in Hanford,  WA is also enlightening.  This book depicts a lot of racism and disregard for human life, so that might bother some readers.  I still have many pages to read, but feel the book will remain interesting to the end.  I highly recommend this book for those that know little about the production of plutonium here in the US and in Russia during the 1940s to early 1950s.

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*Last updated: 2026-01-31*