Very unfortunate that Dr Campos is off-campus this semester, as his Atomic America class is

a truly fascinating look at how science and history collaborate but also collide. A lot of what
Brown argued came up in his class

- Thesis and arguments

Aim – “I would like to present a better guide to survive nuclear disaster” with Chernobyl at
the center and saying what the Soviet and wider authorities could not (p. 8-9).
not to blindly trust authorities, even scientific ones, to have civil courage and to do your
research properly
to expose “the suppression of the record of catastrophic damage in the Chernobyl territories
- Also internal issues – the refusal to evacuate 48,000 civilians – reactor burned for 10
days (links to refusal to tell world of issue)
It represents government commitment to nuclear power which, Brown argues convincingly,
arises from the fact that it enables the production of nuclear weapons
Turn to p.152 - If Soviet scientists could prove that large scale exposures to “low” doses of
Chernobyl radiation harmed only a few dozen firemen, then they could show that even the
worst nuclear accident in human history had no effect on human health. And if that were true,
then the fallout from nuclear testing, the seeping radioactive waste from the bomb factories,
the civilian reactors that daily emitted radioactivity, the widespread use of radiation in
medical treatments, and the exposed bodies of workers, patients and innocent bystanders in
secret medical tests could be forgotten (pp.152-3).
Not just the Soviets at fault - the collaborating UN agency UNSCEAR (United Nations
Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) dismissed all Soviet research and
overlooked many negative scientific studies
o Changing Soviet health reports
 In 1990, though, Chernobyl became ‘a cause for all who wanted to
denounce Soviet rule’ and the contents of the reports shifted
dramatically. The contaminated areas were now a ‘zone of catastrophe’
where very few people were healthy. 'They had suddenly reversed
themselves: the same ministry, the same years, but different numbers. I
tried to sort it out. Somebody, at some point, was lying' (p.164).

- Sources
Reading through particularly the scientific sections, it was so tempting to keep referring back
to the footnoted material that would, it seemed, unwaveringly emerge from classified
scientific publications – when the facts needed to be brought to the forefront of her argument,
I feel she did lean towards official ‘scientific’ sources rather than the interviews that brought
the human element to her exposé
Footnote 68 in Belarusian Somnambulists – p. 195 – “even if you are not one to look at
footnotes, you might turn your attention to this one” followed by a page of references to
scientific findings
- Hints at the urgent need to expose the truth
Brown’s book is one with no redemption, as even the positive environmental reports of a
growing ecosystem surrounding the site are false: __ (). Aside from her presentation of the
clearest debates surrounding nuclear power, however, Brown’s research is most effective
when she utilizes her unique primary sources. I particularly enjoyed when she traced some
poisoned meat that moved around the Soviet bloc for four years, with no one accepting it,
before it was buried.

- Methodology
Her aim is to make up for the gap in scholarship around the disaster, and to learn from it.
Manual for Survival can be similar to a travel guide as well as a scientific outline of the
disaster. She uncovers serious human complications and asks a lot of questions, but I don’t
think she provides enough answers.
On page five she outlines one of her methodological processes of archival research backed up
with interviews from scientists and civilians. Is this enough to make her research reliable?
o Top-down plus bottom-up approach but places archival evidence as more
important than interviews today on the top of p. 6 (good historian, thumb
up)
- Her personal research effectively utilizes bottom-up and top-down methodological
approaches where exclusive interviews challenge improve the accuracy of official
reports from what she views as deceptive scientific sources.
Dismissal of Jim Smith evidence () could be part of a potential exaggeration that is in-
keeping with her denunciation of existing scientific analysis protecting the governmental
propaganda surrounding Chernobyl –

- Historiography
Her view progresses the traditional Cold War narrative surrounding Chernobyl as both Soviet
and Western forces collaborated in covering up the true extent of the damage, with the latter
governments continuing to do so (today?)
This kind of detail enables Brown to stand out from other recent histories on Chernobyl.
Comparison to Adam Higginbotham’s Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the
World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster
- From the same year as Brown, more narrative focus due to his journalist
background, but covers the events with greater detail – introducing characters that
return in the monograph for example – Brown focuses on what happens rather
than portraying the moment of the disaster like Plokhy and Higginbotham do
- Her view progresses the traditional Cold War narrative surrounding Chernobyl as
both Soviet and Western forces collaborated in covering up the true extent of the
damage, with the latter governments continuing to do so (today?)
Plokhy even wrote in the Evening Standard that “Brown knows her landscape exceptionally
well” after decades of research in Ukraine.
This monograph importantly moves her work towards the center of greatest nuclear
controversy following her 2013 Plutopia covering the Soviet and American health of
manufacturing nuclear energy at Hanford, Washington and Mayak, Russia.
Not quite historiography, but wanted to quickly share part of the entertaining science vs
history debate between Jim Smith from the University of Portsmouth, a physicist included in
the sources for Manual for Survival, and Kate Brown over what evidence to include:
- “This section on the effects on wildlife is so biased and misleading that I
hardly know where to start. Brown has chosen to believe the evidence of Anders
P. Møller and Tim Mousseau that there are major effects of radiation on
organisms at Chernobyl … and that wildlife is severely damaged in the Chernobyl
Exclusion Zone (CEZ). In other parts of the book, Brown is careful to question the
veracity of her sources. But surprisingly she fails to mention that Anders P.
Møller is a highly controversial scientist (in radioecology and in his previous
field of evolutionary biology): an article in Nature reports that he was once
found guilty of manipulating data by the Danish Committee on Scientific
Dishonesty (Nature Vol. 427, p 381, 2004).
- Point is that Smith wants debate to become what was scientifically true, not what
has been or can be done

- Revisionism
It was more than the number of dead that Brown seeks to revise, it was the overarchingly
disastrous treatment of all life after the disaster.
Brown powerfully emphasizes that those dealing with the crisis could not deal with the
human or natural consequences of the radiation to expose the real nuclear threat.

Her evidence represents an intense government commitment to nuclear power which, Brown
argues convincingly, arises from the fact that it enables the production of nuclear weapons.”
REWORD – Nuclear power has to remain safe, in the public eyes, to continue nuclear
production
I personally have always had a problem with the American role in nuclear fallout, and
although Brown could certainly go further with the ‘downwinders’ and New Mexico
residents still not receiving reparations or an apology for the 1945 Trinity test as further
evidence of scientific denial, her other work Plutopia does a better job at grounding the
effects on the West. LINK TO CHERNOBYL

- What is missed
([TUH] + [RAY] + [ZEE] + [UHNSH] + [TAT]) Theresienstadt Ghetto visited by the
International Red Cross case study – earlier WWII example of beautifying a location to decrease
attention

- Theresienstadt was used by the SS as a "model ghetto" for fooling Red Cross
representatives about the ongoing Holocaust
- In 1944, the concentration camp was "beautified" for the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Danish government, and the delegates wrote back
positively
- Similar reaction to Soviet propaganda from Chernobyl – not the first time the Red
Cross were misguided in their conclusions
(!) In the weekly discussion of how medieval themes are treated (this should be a segment),
Brown’s metaphors are certainly an interesting change of pace on p. 107

Tourism be viewed as a more important part of the institutional cover up – it is fine to go and
charge individuals to witness the mistakes
Continent-wide issue following the disaster - Mother/Mum was on a boat and fell into the
river just after the disaster and felt at risk for weeks after – Lake District example of
radioactive sediments reached Western news – but does this immediate reaction and
subsequent ignorance of the long-term effects show how the Western world treated this
situation like any other natural, environmental disaster such as an earthquake or typhoon,
rather than a man-made problem?
- Continually mentions the man-made causation of further death and cover up, but also
the environmental issues – are they brought up together enough?

- Concluding points
The Chernobyl disaster shows how science gets strangled by its own arrogance, and how
important the work of historians and journalists is.
While avoiding a descriptive narrative of the events, Brown questions a nuclear future after
the human failings of its past.

Questions
- Importance of the title – how much of this book is a guide to the future? Does Brown
guide us or are we led to just disbelieve science?
- Nuclear debate – does Brown say it was worth it as a fuel source?
- Discuss impact of ‘western authorities’ and Soviets
- Brown’s ultimate estimate of the Chernobyl death toll as 985,000 is some way short
of the most extreme, but clearly well in excess of the official 54, does this show the
inherent importance of finding the facts of history or does it reveal a problem with
historical inquiry whereby this is seen as more important than finding a solution to the
future to ensure this does not happen again? Truth of past more important than using
history to stop truth of past? Need both ideally, yes, but the pursuit is more what I am
talking about
- When seeing that nuclear power only exists at all as part of the military machine that
we have to eliminate if we are to deal with climate change, does Brown’s book
contributed as a survival for global warming or for nuclear disasters?
- Particularly given the rise in the 21st century of authoritarian political movements in
most of the world’s nuclear powers, does Brown indicate that we should be worried
about a nuclear future? What does she suggest we can do?
- On page five she outlines one of her methodological processes of archival research
backed up with interviews from scientists and civilians. Is this enough to make her
research reliable? – places archival evidence as more important than interviews today
on the top of p. 6 (good historian, thumb up)
o Question ___ concerning astoundingness of facts and why scientists (even the
ones interviewed) have failed to publish
- In an age where coronavirus fear indicates science
Timeline
 1939 – Einstein letter to President
Roosevelt warning of the danger of
nuclear weapons
 1945 – First nuclear bomb dropped on
the Trinity Test site, New Mexico; First
use of nuclear power as a weapon as
US drops bomb on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki
 1946-1958 – the US tests 67 nuclear
weapons on the Marshall Islands
 1977 – Construction begins on An article from The Times: April 28, 1986
Chernobyl power plant
 1979 – Three Mile Island nuclear plant partial meltdown in Pennysylvania
 1982 - A partial core meltdown occurs at Chernobyl. The extent of the accident was not
made public until 1985.
 1985 – Soviet Minister of Energy, Anatoly Mayorets, decrees that information on any
adverse effects could not be published
 1986 – Chernobyl disaster impacts Western Europe
 2000 – Reactor 3, the last functioning reactor, is shut down.
 2011 – Earthquake and subsequent tsunami causes Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown
 2011 – Tourism officially begins at Chernobyl. Over 10,000 tourists visit each year
 2012 – Japan shuts down last nuclear power reactor

Questions
 Is nuclear power still worth pursuing as an alternative fuel source?
 As scientific mistruths continued after the Cold War, how can institutional studies remain
unbiased?
 Does the conflicting evidence of the death toll show the inherent importance of finding the
facts of history or does it reveal a problem where facts are seen as more important than
finding a solution to the future to ensure this does not happen again?
o Need both ideally, yes, but the pursuit is more what I am talking about
 Does Brown’s book contribute more as a survival for climate change and nuclear disaster,
or as evidence for constant reassessment of objectivity?
 Particularly given the rise in the 21st century of authoritarian political movements in most
of the world’s nuclear powers, does Brown indicate that we should be worried about a
nuclear future? What does she suggest we can do?
 AFTER FUKUSHIMA DISCUSSION In an age where coronavirus fear indicates the
unknown aspects of scientific knowledge, how historians aid scientific research?
 With her research coming from Belarus and Ukraine, how important is nationalism in
uncovering the different levels of scientific research undertaken?
o Belarusian scientists digging deeper than their Soviet counterparts to find the
traces of Plutonium in the corpses of those who died between 1986-88 (p.
199).
o Ukraine seemed to be exerting their authority while Belarus was at the hands
of post-Soviet Russia
Timeline
 1939 – Einstein letter to President
Roosevelt warning of the danger of nuclear
weapons
 1945 – First nuclear bomb dropped on the
Trinity Test site, New Mexico; First use of
nuclear power as a weapon as US drops
bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 1946-1958 – the US tests 67 nuclear
weapons on the Marshall Islands
 1977 – Construction begins on Chernobyl
power plant
 1979 – Three Mile Island nuclear plant An article from The Times: April 28, 1986
partial meltdown in Pennsylvania
 1982 - A partial core meltdown occurs at Chernobyl. The extent of the accident was not
made public until 1985
 1985 – Soviet Minister of Energy, Anatoly Mayorets, decrees that information on any
adverse effects of radioactivity could not be published in the media
 1986 – Chernobyl disaster impacts Western Europe
 2000 – Reactor 3, the last functioning reactor, is shut down
 2011 – Earthquake and subsequent tsunami causes Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown
 2011 – Tourism officially begins at Chernobyl. Over 10,000 tourists visit each year
 2012 – Japan shuts down last nuclear power reactor

Questions
 Is nuclear power still worth pursuing as an alternative fuel source?
 As scientific mistruths continued after the Cold War, how can institutional studies remain
unbiased?
 Does the conflicting evidence of the death toll show the inherent importance of finding the
facts of history or does it reveal a problem where facts are seen as more important than
finding a solution to the future to ensure this does not happen again?
 Does Brown’s book contribute more as a survival for climate change and nuclear disaster,
or as evidence for constant reassessment of objectivity?
 Particularly given the rise in the 21st century of authoritarian political movements in most
of the world’s nuclear powers, does Brown indicate that we should be worried about a
nuclear future? What does she suggest we can do?
 In an age where coronavirus fear indicates the unknown aspects of scientific knowledge,
how historians aid scientific research?
 With her research coming from Belarus and Ukraine, how important is nationalism in
uncovering the different levels of scientific research undertaken?