MO3514 The Life and Times of the Atom Bomb
   
Lecturer Professor Gerard De Groot  (St Katharine’s Lodge, room 1.11)
   
Credits 30
   
Availability 2009-2010 - semester 1
   
Class Hour view timetable
   
Description This module offers a new perspective on the nuclear age. It examines the period from 1900 to the present day not from the point of view of a single nation but from the vantage point of a single, catastrophic weapon. It combines science with politics, cultural and social history, all wrapped within a diplomatic history package. The module will enable students to study a period from the point of view of different historical disciplines, and, in the process, learn the special skills needed to deal with non-traditional sources of evidence (film, music, literature, etc).
   
Basic Reading R. Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb
G. DeGroot: The Bomb: A Life
   

Course Structure
  1. Introduction
  2. Before the Bomb
  3. Procreation and Birth
  4. Hiroshima and Nagasaki
  5. The Bomb in its Adolescence
  6. Duck and Cover: Civil Defence
  7. (Class Test)
  8. The Bomb in its Prime: 1963-1980
  9. The Culture of the Atom Bomb
  10. Mid Life Crisis: The 1980s
  11. The Bomb at 50
   
Assessment 60% examination - 3-hour paper
40% coursework - 2 essays or the equivalent, and one 2-hour class test
   

Learning Outcomes
  • An understanding of the changing nature of war and foreign relations after 1945, due to the Bomb
  • An appreciation of the interplay of social, cultural and diplomatic history
  • The understanding of how the moral imperative affects individuals and nations
  • The special expertise necessary to the study of the history of science and an understanding of the unique role scientists play in society
  • The ability to analyse a wide variety of evidence in order to understand the scope and nature of historical change
  
   
Restrictions None