HST426 The United States and the Dawn of the Atomic Age, 1945-63

This module explores the ways in which nuclear weapons shaped the United States and its interactions with the world during the early years of the atomic age, from the dropping of ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima in 1945 through to the signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Historians describe this period as one of ‘nuclear anarchy’, in which few rules governed how states could employ nuclear science and technology and in which, as a result, fear of nuclear annihilation loomed large. While much of the early scholarship on this period focused on the foreign policy implications of the United States’ acquisition of the bomb, in recent decades historians have also revealed the important imprints the bomb left on American society. This latter work has served to highlight the ways that the atomic age shaped the U.S. economy, popular culture, gender norms, the environment, and how Americans felt about their government. In examining social and cultural histories of the bomb, alongside work on the geopolitical importance of nuclear weapons, we will consider how nuclear energy shaped the opportunities, mentalities, status, and relationships of ordinary Americans in the middle years of the twentieth century. Moving beyond elite-centred narratives, we will see that the bomb’s power went far beyond its utility as a military and diplomatic tool for waging the Cold War.