Uranium frenzy

the long version

"Raye Ringholz has added the early history of atomic weapons testing and its effects on western American citizens to this new edition of her now classic account of the uranium mining rush and penny stock boom that gripped the Colorado Plateau in the 1950s. Uranium mining existed to feed one market, the United States government, which was then, at the height of the Cold War, engaged in a feverish series of tests of its growing nuclear weapons arsenal. As mining uranium had negative consequences for the health of miners, so did testing of atomic bombs have a tragic impact on many people in the path of the radiation dispersed by the explosions. This revised edition updates the history of the uranium boom while including additional accounts of atomic testing in Nevada, stories of its impact on downwinders and Native Americans and other uranium mine and mill workers, and a discussion of continuing efforts to deal with nuclear waste disposal. It also includes many new photographs."--BOOK JACKET.