Book Review: Critical Masses

 

Book Review (Part 1 of 2): Critical Masses

http://atoms4ca.tumblr.com/post/93940226103/book-review-part-1-of-2-critical-masses

Book Review (Part 2 of 2): Critical Masses

http://atoms4ca.tumblr.com/post/94513900168/critical-masses-2

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Critical Masses was written by Thomas Raymond Wellock, who is currently serving as the Chief Historian of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The book was published in 1998; he wrote it as his dissertation in satisfaction of the requirements for a Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Berkeley (“Cal”). Previously, he had received an M.A. in history at the University of Toledo and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bridgeport. According to his introductory NRC blog post, Dr. Wellock was first a nuclear engineer before the dramatic career change of becoming a historian:

After receiving my B.S. in mechanical engineering, I tested nuclear reactors on submarines for General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut, and worked as an engineer at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Toledo, Ohio.

In the acknowledgements, Wellock discusses how he personally interviewed dozens of activists who were at the forefront of California’s anti-nuclear movement. His effort clearly paid off, as demonstrated by the astonishing degree of candor that he was able to extract from his subjects with respect to the things they said to each other outside of the public eye. My main objective with this post is to publicize Wellock’s findings, which clearly show beyond a shadow of a doubt that California’s anti-nuclear opposition has been founded (for the most part) on falsehoods, baseless fear-mongering, myopic lack of perspective, and an anti-growth ideology that most voters would reject if only they knew that it was the bedrock of anti-nuclear opposition.