"A Hundred Million Hydrogen Bombs": Total War in the Fossil Record

Davis, D. J.

doi:10.1353/con.2001.0015

Cited by 21 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…4 For analyses of the impact-extinction debate, see Clemens (1986), Davis (1996), Davis (2001), andGlen (1994). 5 For histories of catastrophism, see Bowler (1993) and Huggett (1997).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus astronomy was also reconceptualized. Further developing the violent metaphors already appropriated by impact-extinction theory (Davis, 2001), astronomers recast their role as impassioned prophets of doom and saviours of mankind rather than as cold calculators of cosmic order. Traditionally, Solar System astronomy had dealt with the grand narratives of planetary history and the timeless certainties of celestial dynamics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These films were themselves influenced by the scientific work of the day. Meteor was inspired Felicity Mellor,'Colliding Worlds' p. 19 by the 1967 student project at MIT (Kleiman, 1979) and the 1998 films used scientists as consultants (Davis, 2001). As David Kirby (2003) has argued, as well as enabling film studios to claim that their films are scientifically accurate, such consultancy work provides scientists with opportunities to promote a particular version of reality.…”

Section: Also Mentioned By the Scientists Was Larry Niven And Jerry Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Doug Davis (2001) has argued that the idea that the extinction of the dinosaurs was caused by an impact drew the study of the planetary past into the networks of Cold War science. Participants in the impact-extinction controversy debated the relevance of Carl Sagan's nuclear winter calculations, drew on studies of bomb-cratering and invoked the models and metaphors of total-war fighting.…”

Section: Classical Asteroidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Colliding Worlds

Mellor

2007

Soc Stud Sci

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Over the past twenty years a small group of astronomers and planetary scientists have actively promoted the idea that an asteroid might collide with the Earth and destroy civilisation. Despite concerns about placing weapons in space, the asteroid scientists repeatedly met with scientists from the Strategic Defense Initiative to discuss mitigation technologies. This paper examines the narrative context in which asteroids were constructed as a threat and astronomy was reconfigured as an interventionist science. I argue that conceptualising asteroids through narratives of technological salvation invoked a 'narrative imperative' which drew the astronomers towards the militaristic endings that their stories demanded. Impact-threat science thus demonstrates both the ways in which scientific research can be framed by fictional narratives and the ideological ends which such narratives can serve. They foretell a large impact causing global fires, the failure of the world's agriculture and the end of human civilisation. But, these scientists assure us, we live at a unique moment in history when we have the technological means to avert disaster. They call for support for dedicated astronomical surveys of near-Earth objects to provide early warning of an impactor and they have regularly met with defence scientists to discuss new technologies to deflect any incoming asteroids.The scientists who have promoted the asteroid impact threat have done so by invoking narratives of technological salvation -stories which, like the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), promised security through a superweapon in space. The asteroid impact threat can therefore be located within the broader cultural history of fantasies about security and power which Bruce Franklin (1988) has argued is inextricably linked to the century-old idea that a new superweapon could deliver world peace. Howard McCurdy (1997: 78-82), in his study of the ways in which the US space programme was shaped by popular culture, has suggested that the promotion of the impact threat can be seen as the completion of Cold War fantasies which had used a politics of fear to justify space exploration. McCurdy highlights the alignment between the promotion of the impact threat and works of fiction.In this paper, I consider the reconceptualisation of asteroid science which this alignment entailed.It is beyond the scope of this paper to give a complete history of the science of planetary impacts. My focus is on how a group of scientists moved from seeing impacts as significant events in Earth history to seeing them as threatening events in the human future -a move from historical to futurological narratives. Nor is there space to give a full account of the empirical developments which were used to support the construal of asteroids as a threat. Rather, I wish to make the case that these empirical developments were given meaning within a specific narrative context which drew civilian astronomers into contact with defence scientists, especially those working on SDI.

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“…4 For analyses of the impact-extinction debate, see Clemens (1986), Davis (1996), Davis (2001), andGlen (1994). 5 For histories of catastrophism, see Bowler (1993) and Huggett (1997).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Also Mentioned By the Scientists Was Larry Niven And Jerry Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Classical Asteroidsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Colliding Worlds

Mellor

2007

Soc Stud Sci

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“…Part of a series of summer films in the 1990s that rehearse the destruction of the United States and demonstrate the necessity of U.S. nuclear weapons, I think we have to read this as a moment of psychic and cultural release from the Cold War arms race (cf. Rogin 1998, Davis 2001, and Mellor 2007). In the 1990s, Hollywood could work out the details of nuclear war (and various allegorized nuclear threats) with new computer generated precision—precisely because nuclear terror no longer had the meaning it had for a previous generation.…”

Section: Afterimage 2: Armageddon/deep Impact (1998)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“SURVIVAL IS YOUR BUSINESS”: Engineering Ruins and Affect in Nuclear America

Masco

2008

Cultural Anthropology

145

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In this article, I interrogate the national cultural work performed by the mass circulation of images of a nuclear‐bombed United States since 1945. It argues that the production of negative affect has become a central arena of nation‐building in the nuclear age, and tracks the visual deployment of nuclear fear on film from the early Cold War project of civil defense through the “war on terror.” It argues that the production and management of negative affect remains a central tool of the national security state, and demonstrates the primary role the atomic bomb plays in the United States as a means of militarizing everyday life and justifying war.

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Bad Weather

Masco

2009

Soc Stud Sci

215

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How, and when, does it become possible to conceptualize a truly planetary crisis? The Cold War nuclear arms race installed one powerful concept of planetary crisis in American culture. The science enabling the US nuclear arsenal, however, also produced unintended byproducts: notably, a radical new investment in the earth sciences. Cold War nuclear science ultimately produced not only bombs, but also a new understanding of the earth as biosphere. Thus, the image of planetary crisis in the US was increasingly doubled during the Cold War -the immediacy of nuclear threat matched by concerns about rapid environmental change and the cumulative effects of industrial civilization on a fragile biosphere. This paper examines the evolution of (and competition between) two ideas of planetary crisis since 1945: nuclear war and climate change. In doing so, the paper offers an alternative history of the nuclear age and considers the US national security implications of a shift in the definition of planetary crisis from warring states to a warming biosphere.

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"A Hundred Million Hydrogen Bombs": Total War in the Fossil Record

Cited by 21 publications

References 44 publications

Colliding Worlds

Colliding Worlds

“SURVIVAL IS YOUR BUSINESS”: Engineering Ruins and Affect in Nuclear America

Bad Weather

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