Nuclear war in the Cold War: The global legacies of nuclear testing on colonial and indigenous populations

Wednesday 1 March 2023, 15.30-17.00
DIIS ∙ Danish Institute for International Studies
Auditorium
Gl. Kalkbrænderi Vej 51A
2100 Copenhagen

At this seminar, Robert Jacobs will present the findings of his provocative new book Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha (Yale University Press, 2022). The book brings together a decade of field research, conducted in more than 20 countries, on the effects of radiation exposures to individuals and communities from nuclear weapon testing, production and accidents.

Robert Jacobs challenges the view that the Cold War was a period in which nuclear weapons were not used. In fact, since the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima & Nagasaki there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests. Statistically, a nuclear bomb went off almost every week between 1950-1989. Millions of people lived downwind from those nuclear tests, and thermonuclear tests raised radioactive fallout into the troposphere and stratosphere which eventuated in global distribution of radionuclides. Millions more lived near nuclear production sites, or accident sites like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Many still live with the consequences today. Robert Jacobs refers to these victims as the global “hibakusha” - the Japanese word for people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Professor Robert Jacobs will weave these distinct nuclear legacies of the global hibakusha into a comprehensive global history on the embrace of nuclear technologies and their millennia-long effects. His talk emphasizes the deep colonial dimensions of nuclear testing and explains how political use of medical models serves to downplay the health-related harms of nuclear testing.

Programme
15.30-15.35     Introduction, Rens Van Munster
15.35-16.20     Presentation, Robert Jacobs
16.20-16.30     Break
16.30-17.00     Q&A
17.00-17.30     Reception

Speakers
Robert Jacobs is a professor of History at Hiroshima Peace Institute and the Graduate School of Peace Studies of Hiroshima City University. He is a historian of science and technology focused on nuclear technologies and radiation technopolitics. He has published and edited multiple books and articles on nuclear history and culture. His most recent book “Nuclear Bodies: The Global Hibakusha” was published in 2022.

Rens van Munster, senior researcher, DIIS – Danish Institute for International Studies