The Atomic Archipelago : US Nuclear Submarines and Technopolitics of Risk in Cold War Italy / Davide Orsini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Orsini, Davide, author.

Series:

Intersections (Pittsburgh, Pa.) ; Volume 16.

Intersections Series ; Volume 16

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nuclear submarines--United States--History--20th century.

Nuclear submarines.

Nuclear submarines--United States--History--21st century.

Cold War.

United States--Military relations--Italy.

United States.

Italy--Military relations--United States.

Italy.

United States. Navy--Submarine forces.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (328 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pa. : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2022]

Summary:

In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups - including residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians - to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly preset and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, whereunique social power dynaics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies. -- Dust jacket.

Contents:

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Introduction: The Atomic Archipelago

Part I: A Strategic Naval Outpost: History, Identity, and the Military-Industrial Complex

Chapter 1: Not an American Fleet in Town

Chapter 2: Becoming Nuclear: Nuclearity and the politics of science in La Maddalena

Part II: Technopolitics of Risk: Secrecy, Bureaucracy, and the Production of Ignorance

Chapter 3: Radioecology and the Italian Nuclear Regulatory Regime

Chapter 4: A Technopolitical Compromise: The Dual System of Radiosurveillance in Italy

Chapter 5: Italian Bureaucracy and the Production of Ignorance

Part III: Risk, Accidents, and Political Mobilization

Chapter 6: Material Semoitics of Risk

Chapter 7: Scientific Controversies and Political Mobilization after the Hartford Incident

Conclusion: Natural Histories: Unearthing the Military-Industrial Legacy of La Maddalena

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780822988854

0822988852

OCLC:

1315644811