Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America
Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America
Share
Foertsch also examines the location of African American characters in novels, science fiction, and survivalist nonfiction such as government-sponsored forecasts regarding post-nuclear survival. In these, black characters are often displaced or absented entirely: in doomsday narratives they are excluded from executive decision-making and the stories' often triumphant conclusions; in the nonfiction, they are rarely envisioned amongst the typical American survivors charged with rebuilding US society. Throughout Reckoning Day, issues of placement and positioning provide the conceptual framework: abandoned at ground zero (America's inner cities) during the height of the atomic threat, African Americans were figured in white-authored survival fiction as compliant servants aiding white victory over atomic adversity, while as historical figures they were often perceived as elsewhere (indifferent) to the atomic threat. In fact, African Americans' position on the bomb was rarely one of silence or indifference. Ranging from appreciation to disdain to vigorous opposition, atomic-era African Americans developed diverse and meaningful positions on the bomb and made essential contributions to a remarkably American dialogue.
Binding Type: Hardcover
Author: Foertsch, Jacqueline
Published: 09/30/2013
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN: 9780826519269
Pages: 264
Weight: 1.60lbs
Size: 10.00h x 7.00w x 0.90d