The Tainted Desert

This text maps the nuclear landscapes of the US inter-desert southwest, a land sacrificed to the Cold-War arms race and nuclear energy policy. Valerie Kuletz documents in detail the consequences of these policies on the southwestern land and its native peoples. Consequently, a double exposure emerges of one landscape superimposed upon another: a landscape of national sacrifice over what many Americans understand as a geography of the sacred. Kuletz investigates how culture influences both native and scientific representations of nature as well as strategies for managing the relationship between nature and human society. The author draws on interviews with the Native Americans affected by nuclear activity while using mapping strategies, textual analysis and an ethnoecological approach to document the zones of national sacrificial land.

ISBN 0415917719   Pages 288 ISBN13 9780415917711 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd   Weight (grammes) 612 Imprint Routledge   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 7 Publication date 07 May 1998   Width (mm) 10 Library of Congress 97034594   Spine width (mm) 19 DEWEY 363.72890979   Academic level Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC21

		List of Illustrations/Maps
		Legend of Map Symbols
		List of Acronyms
		Preface
		Acknowledgments
1		Mapping the Nuclear Landscape		1
1		Introduction		3
2		Tragedy at the Center of the Universe		19
3		Science Cities in the Desert		38
4		Nuclear Wasteland		81
2		Power, Representation, and Cultural Politics at Yucca Mountain		121
5		The View from Yucca Mountain		123
6		Cultural Politics		159
7		The Country of Lost Borders		185
8		Aboriginal Homeland		205
9		The Experimental Landscape		245
10		Conclusion		283
		Notes		291
		Bibliography		319
		Index		331

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