Response to ‘Plutopia’ by Kate Brown
‘Plutopia’ by Kate Brown is an impressive book that performs a good job at comparing the history of United States and Russia when it comes to matters of plutonium production. She argues that the history of these two nations can only be told by capturing the manner in which they reflect and also reinforce one another. Part one and two of the book looks at the construction of the two plutonium producing plants and also the social and economic impacts of the plants to the surrounding the communities as they developed. I would say the exploration by Brown is very effective because the readers get to understand these communities and the effects that the operation of plants had on their lives.
In both Russia and U.S, the powerful centralized state authority dictated the responses to concerns about matters of national security, radiation emission release and the general control of the labour source by strictly regulating the stream of atomic data, by rigidily consolidating space, and by encouraging material reimbursement to the inhabitants of these plutopias. In both these places, the residents welcomed and accepted these promises of consumer affluence in trade for their loyalty, discipline, silence and also health.
I particularly like the manner in which Brown repeatedly demonstrates the way that the Richland and Ozersk plants polluted the surrounding environments with the radioactive waste without any considerations as to the long term effects that they would have on the society. The construction of the plants is presented in a way that shows that the facilities were not properly organized and hence very insecure and wasteful of the resources. Both the military and the civilian executives that run the two operations help to illustrate the little concern of the health effects that the radiation exposure had on the workers and also the residents because all that they cared for is to get the weapons all at the expense of the residents. The hazards of the exposure were pointed out in both cases but no measure was taken to counter the effects which are just an illustration of how ignorant the project managers were. as explained by Brown, the worry of the residents in regard to their health was always displaced with the reassurance of better health for them which as a lie. Brown argues that if the measures that are there today in the 21st century in regard to gender sensitivity and environmental awareness were applied then, then the effects would not have been so great.
A new term that is effectively introduced by Brown in Plutopia is ‘biological rights’ which brings the question as to whether biological rights are constructed differently across time and place. People have often had their biological rights prescribed by their race, class and location but this is not really appropriate. Biological rights are just like civil rights and responsibilities and every human being is entitled to have their rights respected.
Brown’s work is effective because it relies on research, interviews and a firm grounding in the secondary literature of both US and Russia. All the stories that she tells have been told before so no one can doubt them, however the way that Brown combines them together to draw a conclusion is much more effective. She effectively uses her experiences through the use of first person narrative device to provide the readers an important access point to a narrative hose social justice implication evidently need such a personal touch.
References
Brown, K. (2013). Plutopia: Nuclear families, atomic cities, and the great Soviet and
American plutonium disasters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
