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The atomic age was described as one that might soon end in the destruction of human civilization, but from the beginning, utopian images were attached to it as well. This book compares representations of nuclear power in popular media from around the world to to trace divergences, convergences, and exchanges.

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Introduction: a Transnational History of Popular Images and Narratives of Nuclear Technologies in the First Two Post-war Decades; D.van Lente Shaping the Soviet Experience of the Atomic Age: Nuclear Topics in Ogonyok, 1945-1965; S.D.Schmid ´To See . . . Things Dangerous to Come to´: Life Magazine and the Atomic Age in the United States, 1945-1965; S.C.Zeman Learning from War: Media Coverage of the Nuclear Age in the Two Germanies; D.L.Augustine ´Dawn - Or Dusk?´: Britain´s Picture Post Confronts Nuclear Energy; C.Laucht Nuclear Power, World Politics, and a Small Nation: Narratives and Counter-narratives in the Netherlands; D.van Lente Nuclear Power Plants in ´the Only A-bombed Country´: Images of Nuclear Power and Nation´s Changing Self-portrait in Post-war Japan; H.Utsumi Promises of Indian Modernity: Representations of Nuclear Technology in the Illustrated Weekly of India; H-J.Bieber Conclusion: One World, Two Worlds, Many Worlds?; D.Augustine & D.van Lente

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"The Nuclear Age in Popular Media successfully shows the need to think critically about the contents and flows of discourses on nuclear technology from comparative and transnational perspectives that are often overlooked. This book should become required reading for scholars in the fields of rhetoric, media studies, and history as well as science, technology, and society." - International Journal of Communication

"[I]n nine crisply written and surprisingly coherent chapters, van Lente and expert contributors offer an erudite account of this subject over the critical 20 years from 1945 to 1965, which should appeal to a wider audience than those readers likely to find their way to this work . . . This book, with its haunting cover illustration, makes fascinating reading. Recommended." - CHOICE

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DICK VAN LENTE is an Associate Professor of History at Erasmus Universiteit, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

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