Contaminated Country (Paperback)

Jessica Urwin

ISBN 10: 029575379X / ISBN 13: 9780295753799

Published by University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2025

About this Item

Paperback. The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia's embrace of the world's nuclear orderThough a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century. From uranium extraction to nuclear testing, Australias lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development. The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism. However, this history is not just one of imposition. Aboriginal communities, bearing the brunt of these processes, have persistently resisted, reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations.As Jessica Urwin shows, extraction, weapons testing, and nuclear waste disposal have caused incalculable physical, spiritual, and cultural harm to Aboriginal communities and lands. Yet Indigenous peoples all over the world have not only survived nuclear colonialism but challenged it time and time again. Tracking the colonial mechanisms Australia used to pursue a nuclear industry, Urwin simultaneously highlights how Aboriginal peoples refused and reshaped those same mechanisms over time. A groundbreaking book, Contaminated Country reveals how Australias deep nuclear past has been entangled with colonialism locally, nationally, and internationally. The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia's embrace of the world's nuclear orderThough a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9780295753799

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Contaminated Country (Paperback)
• Publisher: University of Washington Press, Seattle
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 029575379X
• ISBN 13: 9780295753799
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

The destruction and defiance that swirled around Australia's embrace of the world's nuclear order

Though a nonnuclear state, Australia was embroiled in the military and civilian nuclear energy programs of numerous global powers across the twentieth century. From uranium extraction to nuclear testing, Australia’s lands became sites of imperial exploitation under the guise of national development. The continent was subject to rampant nuclear colonialism. However, this history is not just one of imposition. Aboriginal communities, bearing the brunt of these processes, have persistently resisted, reclaiming their rights to Country and demanding reparations.

As Jessica Urwin shows, extraction, weapons testing, and nuclear waste disposal have caused incalculable physical, spiritual, and cultural harm to Aboriginal communities and lands. Yet Indigenous peoples all over the world have not only survived nuclear colonialism but challenged it time and time again. Tracking the colonial mechanisms Australia used to pursue a nuclear industry, Urwin simultaneously highlights how Aboriginal peoples refused and reshaped those same mechanisms over time. A groundbreaking book, Contaminated Country reveals how Australia’s deep nuclear past has been entangled with colonialism locally, nationally, and internationally.

About the Author

Jessica Urwin is a lecturer in environmental history at the University of Tasmania.