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E-book Deep Cut : Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal

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Penilaian

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The famed French engineer of the Suez Canal, Ferdinand de Lesseps, destroyed his career and the lives of twenty-ve thousand workers by insisting he could excavate across the mountainous Panamanian isthmus in the s. Learning from his mistakes, the Americans succeeded in the early s by taming the tropical insect-borne diseases and building an ingenious “bridge of water” with a dam and locks that li ships eighty-ve feet above sea level. However, the world-changing Panama Canal appeared more and more obsolescent and vulnerable as ship size and military airpower increased, leading its postwar operators to dust off old plans for a means of connecting the seas without any impediments. Nuclear weapons designers thought they had discovered the key to unlocking the canal in the form of peaceful nuclear explo-sives (PNEs), and to that end the U.S. government spent hundreds of millions of dollars and thirteen years considering the question of atomic excavation. And yet, when a presidential commission announced in   that it had ruled out PNEs in favor of ordinary construction methods, critics from both the right and the le in essence declared, “told you so.”That in a nutshell is the conventional story of the Atlantic-Pacic sea-level canal, a megaproject that failed to make the transition from idea to reality and thereby enter the pantheon of monumental civil engineering works. Devoting historiographical attention to such a nonevent might seem counterproductive.But over the last two decades scholars have produced insightful technoscien-tic and diplomatic histories of the nuclear canal proposal (de Lesseps’s project has received more attention, though mainly as a counterpoint to the American success). Scholarly studies of the nuclear canal have enriched our understand-ing of Cold War–era mentalities and geopolitical relations by addressing it in the context of Project Plowshare, the  – U.S. initiative to apply nuclear energy to earthmoving and other nonmilitary pursuits. The “Panatomic” pro-posal sheds light not only on the hubris and tenacity of Plowshare, but also the arrogance and persistence of U.S. imperialism in Panama, which lasted from  (when the United States helped engineer a revolt against Colombia) to  (when Panama assumed full sovereignty over the waterway and surround-ing zone).

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

909.82 KEI d

Penerbit

London : University of Georgia Press., 2020

Deskripsi Fisik

275 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780820358307

Klasifikasi

909.82

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

World History 20th Century, 1900 - 1999

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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