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Red Atom
I'd like to mention a recently published book called "Red Atom: Russia's
Nuclear Power Program from Stalin to Today" (Paul Josephson, WH Freeman &
Company, 2000).
As with so many other books, I have not had a chance to read this yet - it
just joined my "to be read" stack. However, I have some long flights coming
up.... In any event, it purports to give a thorough history of the Soviet
nuclear power program, including their version of "atoms for peace", nuclear
powered vehicles, the Soviet vision of a nuclear-powered Communism, and so
forth. In the back are extensive endnotes and all sorts of interesting
tables. The author, who is fluent in Russian, used primary sources,
including interviews, as much as possible. And the author (at least, based
on the introduction) does not seem to be grinding an anti-nuclear ax. In
fact, he states his father worked at Oak Ridge as a nuclear physicist and
that he was "honored to visit nuclear facilities" in Russia. However, as I
said, I have not yet read the book.
It looks like an interesting story that might make a nice complement to what
we already know about the US and other nuclear power programs. I'm sure
it's available in bookstores, but I got my copy through Amazon.com.
Andy
Andrew Karam, CHP (716) 275-1473 (voice)
Radiation Safety Officer (716) 275-3781 (office)
University of Rochester (716) 256-0365 (fax)
601 Elmwood Ave. Box HPH Rochester, NY 14642
Andrew_Karam@URMC.Rochester.edu
http://Intranet.urmc.rochester.edu/RadiationSafety
Mathematics may be compared to a mill of exquisite workmanship which grinds
you stuff of any degree of fineness; but, nevertheless, what you get out
depends on what you put in; and as the grandest mill in the world will not
extract wheat-flour from peascods, so pages of formulae will not get a
definite result out of loose data. (T.H. Huxley, 1869)
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