Consequential Damages of Nuclear War

"When I began to read this book, I found I could not put it away. In this gripping story, Johnston and Barker make a persuasive argument for redefining the compensation principle to include community damages associated with the loss of a way of life. Contending with the classification and reclassification of key government documents, and incorporating persuasive evidence from oral histories, archival research, and cultural landscape mapping, they render in powerful detail."... --Edward Liebow, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation "This ethnography is appropriate to use in undergraduate and graduate level anthropology courses to illustrate how meticulous ethnographic fieldwork can serve as essential evidence in cases concerning human rights violations. In addition to demonstrating what applying anthropology can accomplish, this book also suggests the importance of long-term ethnographic analysis and multiple methodologies for acquiring data, as well as what can be gained from engaging with professionals both in and outside of anthropology. The readability of this ethnography makes it highly accessible to the public, and more importantly, to policy makers and military personnel who can make a contribution in working to prevent these atrocities from occurring again." --Lauren Harris, Journal of Ecological Anthropology "As Johnston and Barker thoroughly document, the losses of the Rongelapese went much further and deeper; the harm struck to the core of their existence as a community closely tied to the atoll... As the Obama administration tries to convince the United States and the world that we must achieve complete and verifiable nuclear disarmament, it should give the recommendations of this book a fresh look." ---Arjun Makhijani, The Nonproliferation Review "...This powerful, sad, outrageous, important, spellbinding book is a dramatic history of America's second nuclear war, the one the United States Government waged with nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific against the Marshallese people, and with our own military personnel--the Atomic Veterans, who were ordered to participate in the atomic and hydrogen bomb tests of the postwar years. The consequences were devastating for both the natives and the service personnel, the cover-ups were criminal, and the lessons are palpable and relevant today. The Rongelap Report is at the top of my 2008 required reading list for both candidates and voters. That includes you!".. --Martin J. Sherwin, PhD, Pulitzer Prize winning author (with Kai Bird) of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer "...Consequential Damages of Nuclear War is a testament to why anthropology matters. Barbara Rose Johnston and Holly Barker bring heart, mind, memory and conscience to document a tragic past that many would have preferred be forgotten. Their careful scholarship and representative activism boldly declares the promise of engaged applied anthropology."... --David Price, Saint Martin's University "The Rongelap Report is an excellent example of what collaborative politically engaged public anthropology is capable of achieving, when incisive scholarship is brought to bear on urgent problems of human rights, cultural integrity, and policy making." ---Laura A. McNamara, Journal of Anthropological Research