From Cotton to the Cold War: Plantation Power, Atomic Inequality and Nuclear Development in the American South

Keywords: racial capitalism, uneven development, nuclear geography, race, environmental racism, militarism, cold war, historical geography,
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Analyzing cold war military development in the American South through a close reading of the economic, political, and spatial history of one of the largest nuclear production facilities in the United States. In this paper, I trace the role played by the Savannah River Site in (re)producing historical inequalities present in the region and how the sighting of the facility utilized such inequalities as a spatial fix to further the goals of the state and capital during cold war weapons production.