Plutopia : nuclear families, atomic cities, and the great Soviet and American plutonium disasters / Kate Brown.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-398) and index.

Part One. Incarcerated space and Western nuclear frontiers -- Mr. Matthias goes to Washington -- Labor on the lam -- Labor shortage -- Defending the nation -- The city plutonium built -- Work and the women left holding plutonium -- Hazards -- The food chain -- Of flies, mice and men -- Part Two. The Soviet working class atom and the American response -- The arrest of a journal -- The Gulag and the bomb -- The Bronze Age atom -- Keeping secrets -- Beria's visit -- Reporting for duty -- Empire of calamity -- "A few good men" : in pursuit of America's permanent war economy -- Stalin's rocket engine : rewarding the plutonium people -- Big Brother in the American heartland -- Neighbors -- The vodka society -- Part Three. The plutonium disasters -- Managing a risk society -- The walking wounded -- Two autopsies -- Wahluke Slope : into harm's way -- Quiet flows the Techa -- Resettlement -- The zone of immunity -- The socialist consumers' republic -- The uses of an open society -- The Kyshtym belch, 1957 -- Karabolka, beyond the zone -- Private parts -- "From crabs to caviar, we had everything" -- Part Four. Dismantling the plutonium curtain -- Plutonium into portfolio shares -- Chernobyl redux -- 1984 -- The forsaken -- Sick people -- Cassandra in coveralls -- Nuclear glasnost -- All the kings' men -- Futures.