The Radiance of France by Gabrielle Hecht

The Radiance of France by Gabrielle Hecht

How it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or "radiance," which also means "radiation" in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else.

In the aftermath of World War II, as France sought a distinctive role for itself in the modern, postcolonial world, the nation and its leaders enthusiastically embraced large technological projects in general and nuclear power in particular. The Radiance of France asks how it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or "radiance," which also means "radiation" in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else.

To answer this question, Gabrielle Hecht has forged an innovative combination of technology studies and cultural and political history in a book that, as Michel Callon writes in the new foreword to this edition, "not only sheds new light on the role of technology in the construction of national identities" but is also "a seminal contribution to the history of contemporary France." Proposing the concept of technopolitical regime as a way to analyze the social, political, cultural, and technological dynamics among engineering elites, unionized workers, and rural communities, Hecht shows how the history of France's first generation of nuclear reactors is also a history of the multiple meanings of nationalism, from the postwar period (and France's desire for post-Vichy redemption) to 1969 and the adoption of a "Frenchified" American design.

This paperback edition of Hecht's groundbreaking book includes both Callon's foreword and an afterword by the author in which she brings the story up to date, and reflects on such recent developments as the 2007 French presidential election, the promotion of nuclear power as the solution to climate change, and France's aggressive exporting of nuclear technology.

Hecht, Gabrielle: - Gabrielle Hecht is Frank Stanton Foundation Professor of Nuclear Security and Professor of History at Stanford University. She is the author of The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (MIT Press).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262582810
ISBN 10	0262582813
Title	The Radiance of France
Author	Gabrielle Hecht
Series	Inside Technology
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2009-07-31
Number of pages	496
Prizes	Winner of Winner of the 2001 Edelstein Prize, presented by Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) Winner of the 1999 Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical Association.
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.