Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear and the Cold War of the 1980s

The book brings together cutting-edge scholarship from the United States and Europe to address political and cultural responses to the arms race of the 1980s.

Eckart Conze (Edited by), Martin Klimke (Edited by), Jeremy Varon (Edited by)

9781316501788, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 March 2020

386 pages, 3 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.6 kg

'Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s … follows a well-established line of research … the book succeeds in its aim to consistently link popular public discourse and concrete high politics.' Karena Kalmbach, Comparativ

This book brings together cutting-edge scholarship from the United States and Europe to address political as well as cultural responses to both the arms race of the 1980s and the ascent of nuclear energy as a second, controversial dimension of the nuclear age. Diverse in its topics and disciplinary approaches, Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear and the Cold War of the 1980s makes a fundamental contribution to the emerging historiography of the 1980s as a whole. As of now, the era's nuclear tensions have been addressed by scholars mostly from the standpoint of security studies, focused on the geo-strategic deliberations of political elites and at the level of state policy. Yet nuclear anxieties, as the essays in this volume document, were so pervasive that they profoundly shaped the era's culture, its habits of mind, and its politics, far beyond the domain of policy.

1. Nuclear winter prophecies of doom and images of desolation during the Second Cold War Wilfried Mausbach
2. Atomic nightmares and biological citizens at Three Mile Island Natasha Zaretsky
3. Missile bases as concentration camps: the role of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the Holocaust in the West German discourse on nuclear armament Eckart Conze
4. Will you sing about the missiles? British antinuclear protest music of the 1980s William M. Knoblauch
5. From artists for peace to the Green Caterpillar: cultural activism and electoral politics in 1980s West Germany Martin Klimke and Laura Stapane
6. A tenuous peace: international antinuclear activism in the East German Writers Union during the 1980s Thomas Goldstein
7. The 'example of Wyhl': how grassroots protest in the Rhine Valley shaped West Germany's antinuclear movement Stephen Milder
8. No nukes and front porch politics: environmental protest culture and practice on the second Cold War home front Michael Stewart Foley
9. Global micropolitics: toward a transnational history of grassroots nuclear-free zones Susanne Schregel
10. European nuclear disarmament: transnational peace campaigning in the 1980s Patrick Burke
11. A case of 'Hollanditis': the interchurch peace council and the Christian peace movement in Western Europe Sebastian Kalden
12. Peace through strength? The impact of the antinuclear uprising on the Carter and Reagan administrations Lawrence S. Wittner
13. Did protest matter? The influence of the peace movement on the West German government and the Social Democratic Party, 1977–83 Tim Geiger and Jan Hansen
14. Why was there no 'accidental armageddon' discourse in France? How defense intellectuals, peace movements, and public opinion rethought the Cold War during the Euromissile crisis Katrin Rücker
15. Building trust: the G7 summits and international leadership in nuclear politics Enrico Böhm.

Subject Areas: Nuclear weapons [JWMN], The Cold War [HBTW], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3]