Stages of Emergency: Cold War Nuclear Civil DefenseDuke University Press, 2007 M06 27 - 439 pages In an era defined by the threat of nuclear annihilation, Western nations attempted to prepare civilian populations for atomic attack through staged drills, evacuations, and field exercises. In Stages of Emergency the distinguished performance historian Tracy C. Davis investigates the fundamentally theatrical nature of these Cold War civil defense exercises. Asking what it meant for civilians to be rehearsing nuclear war, she provides a comparative study of the civil defense maneuvers conducted by three NATO allies—the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom—during the 1950s and 1960s. Delving deep into the three countries’ archives, she analyzes public exercises involving private citizens—Boy Scouts serving as mock casualties, housewives arranging home protection, clergy training to be shelter managers—as well as covert exercises undertaken by civil servants. Stages of Emergency covers public education campaigns and school programs—such as the ubiquitous “duck and cover” drills—meant to heighten awareness of the dangers of a possible attack, the occupancy tests in which people stayed sequestered for up to two weeks to simulate post-attack living conditions as well as the effects of confinement on interpersonal dynamics, and the British first-aid training in which participants acted out psychological and physical trauma requiring immediate treatment. Davis also brings to light unpublicized government exercises aimed at anticipating the global effects of nuclear war. Her comparative analysis shows how the differing priorities, contingencies, and social policies of the three countries influenced their rehearsals of nuclear catastrophe. When the Cold War ended, so did these exercises, but, as Davis points out in her perceptive afterword, they have been revived—with strikingly similar recommendations—in response to twenty-first-century fears of terrorists, dirty bombs, and rogue states. |
From inside the book
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... practices . ' No longer merely an arcane by - product of the Cold War characterized by kitsch artifacts and memories of ducking under school desks or dispensing ID tags to children , civil defense is resurrected as homeland security ...
... , and systems analysis under a common methodology of embodied practice . This is a multinational comparativist study . Since members of the NATO alli- ance recognized the same threat and shared an interlocking military 2 Introduction.
... practices of three close allies - the United States , Canada , and the United Kingdom - compare in their ... practice ; only in the United States was the concept of the subject ( defence ) and its execution ( defense ) elided ...
... practices executed on their behalf . War , after all , is seri- ous and its prosecution is of utmost consequence . Nuclear bombs gave rise to a new profession dedicated to planning for the aftermath of their 4 Introduction.
... technologically sophisticated tools for monitoring them , but has our recourse for practicing risk management or abate- ment fundamentally altered ? Part I DIRECTING APOCALYPSE Chapter 1 CIVIL DEFENSE CONCEPTS AND Introduction 5.
Contents
Civil Defense Concepts and Planning | 2 |
Rehearsals for Nuclear War | 58 |
The Psychology of Vulnerability | 105 |
Sheltering | 127 |
Get Out of Town | 158 |
Communications | 181 |
Acting Out Injury | 198 |
Crisis Play | 223 |
Disaster Welfare | 261 |
Continuity of Government | 287 |
Computer Play | 312 |
Dismantling Civil Defense | 331 |
Cold War and Civil Defense Time Line | 339 |
Notes | 351 |
Work Cited | 401 |
429 | |
International Play | 247 |