“Radioactive Dixie” dives into questions about how and why the South’s history, culture and politics shaped the region’s nuclear and energy industries, and how that history is linked to broader developments in the national and global nuclear and energy industries.
The South contains more nuclear reactors than anywhere else in the nation and much of its radioactive waste. This book traces the impact of how a decades-long effort by Southern politicians, industry figures, universities and government officials transformed the American South into a nuclear-oriented region. The nuclear industry was a pivotal part of the regional modernization that began in the 19th century, promising to expand the South’s economy and make it a center of modern industry, science and engineering as it produced cheap, limitless energy.