On the Home Front - 3rd Edition by Michele Stenehjem Gerber (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

On the Home Front is the only comprehensive history of the Hanford Nuclear Site, America's most productive and wasteful plutonium manufacturing facility. Located in southeastern Washington State, the Hanford Site produced the plutonium used in the atomic bombs that ended World War II. This book was made possible by the declassification in the 1980s of tens of thousands of government documents relating to the construction, operation, and maintenance of the site. The third edition contains a new introduction by John M. Findlay and a new epilogue by the author. Michele Stenehjem Gerber works in the Public Information Office of Fluor Hanford, Inc. She has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Declassification and has served on the Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Advisory Committee and consulted for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. John M. Findlay is a professor of history at the University of Washington and the coeditor of Parallel Destinies: Canadians, Americans and the Western Border and The Atomic West.

From the Back Cover

The Hanford Site in southeastern Washington state was built by the Army Corps of Engineers and the DuPont Corporation during World War II to produce plutonium for America's first atomic weapons. The gigantic facility was immediately successful, producing and delivering in less than two years the plutonium for the world's initial atomic explosion and for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki that effectively ended World War II. This first complete history of Hanford was made possible by the recent declassification of tens of thousands of formerly secret government documents relating to the construction, operation, and maintenance of the site. It describes the releases (planned and accidental) of radioactive and chemical contaminants; their pathways through the environment; attempts to correct problems under conditions of rapid, nearly chaotic change; and the secrecy of government operations that made scientific review of Hanford processes virtually impossible.

Review Quotes

"On the Home Front should be read by everyone concerned with public policy and the environmental issues that dominate this postmodern world." --William L. Lang, Western Historical Quarterly

"On the Home Front [is] a work of history dispassionately told, thoroughly footnoted, the literary equivalent of a nuclear explosion."--Michael E. Long, National Geographic

"[Gerber's] skill in reconstructing the story of Hanford's environmental ravages has given us a book that can both alarm and instruct." --Journal of American History

"A welcome contribution to the growing historiography of the Cold War. . . The questions raised by Gerber about the role of experts and of secrecy in a democracy will hopefully attract the serious attention they so earnestly deserve."--American Historical Review

About the Author

Michele Stenehjem Gerber works in the Public Information Office of Fluor Hanford, Inc. She has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Declassification and has served on the Hanford Reach National Monument Federal Advisory Committee and consulted for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. John M. Findlay is a professor of history at the University of Washington and the coeditor of Parallel Destinies: Canadians, Americans and the Western Border and The Atomic West.