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Frenchman Flat

The Rise and Fall of Atomic Bombs
By Jon Else
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Brief Description
The story of a single nuclear bomb's deep origins, brief life during the Cold War, and lasting environmental and political legacies—as a fresh path to consider the entire sweep of the American nuclear enterprise. A timely book for unstable times, Frenchman Flat recounts the science, politics,... Read More
Format: Hardback
$7400

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Acclaimed filmmaker Jon Else combines history, science, politics, popular culture, and personal testimony into a seamless narrative of the American nuclear enterprise, from Los Alamos to the 1990s, tracing the production of ever more powerful nuclear weapons, the consequences of fallout from them, and the efforts to ban testing entirely.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

The story of a single nuclear bomb's deep origins, brief life during the Cold War, and lasting environmental and political legacies—as a fresh path to consider the entire sweep of the American nuclear enterprise.

A timely book for unstable times, Frenchman Flat recounts the science, politics, and human experience of those who developed nuclear weapons, suffered the consequences of their testing, and fought for and against arms control between the 1940s and 1990s. The throughline of this vast, complex story is a 37-kiloton atomic bomb dubbed "Priscilla" that was exploded above a custom-built mini-civilisation at Frenchman Flat, Nevada, in 1957. Jon Else uses Priscilla and the bombs that preceded and followed to highlight the terrifying ways we have considered to blow ourselves to bits with nuclear weapons, how near and often we came to self-annihilation, how we managed to avoid it, and what we did to the planet, and to our own bodies, in the process, from wartime Los Alamos to the suspension of US and Soviet nuclear testing in 1992.

In the two decades after Hiroshima, a pair of dramatic stories unfolded alongside each other: the scramble to produce ever more powerful nuclear weapons, and the struggle to ban testing of those same weapons. The dramatic narrative takes in the physics of the megaton postwar bombs, the role of private industry, the near misses of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and less well-known events, and the testimony of scientists, politicians, doctors, weapons developers, test-site workers, ranchers, and families downwind of test sites.

This powerful and persuasive book reminds us how we have—so far—prevented nuclear war by deterrence, diplomacy, and luck. It is for the moment a success story, and a warning.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780674300354

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 08 September 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Harvard University Press

Illustration: 44 photos, 2 illus.

Audience: General / adult, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 33.0mm

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 235.0mm

Weight: 878g

Pages: 464

Collections

Education & Reference History & Archaeology History & Military Jon Else Military History Non-Fiction Politics & Current Affairs Science & Nature

About the Author

Jon Else is a documentary filmmaker and Professor Emeritus at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. A MacArthur Fellow, two-time Oscar nominee, and five-time Emmy winner, he produced and directed the first ever film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, The Day After Trinity, and was series producer and cinematographer for Henry Hampton’s Eyes on the Prize.

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