2018 Melville-Nelles-Hoffman Lecture in Environmental History: Kate Brown

Fissile Material Storage Facility at Mayak, Russia. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

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The Department of History at York University hosted the 2018 Melville-Nelles-Hoffmann Lecture in environmental history featuring Kate Brown from University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She spoke about her book, Plutopia: Nuclear Families in Atomic Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford 2013).

Professor Brown’s lecture explored the development of two plutonium production facilities and their nearby employee townsites, one in the U.S. and one in the U.S.S.R. She revealed the surprising similarities between these model towns that were intended to provide different versions of the good life, capitalist and communist. The lecture was an extraordinary exploration of nuclear power, human health, labour relations, Cold War tensions, and environmental contamination.

You can listen to the audio from the full lecture in the player above or download a copy here.

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