Why read Contaminated Country?

Book cover of Contaminated Country

Book description

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…

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Native American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Contaminated Country as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Angela Woollacott

Author

Contaminated Country is a powerful account of the devastating effects that the nuclear cycle -- from the mining of radioactive minerals, to nuclear bomb testing, and attempts to establish a dumping site for radioactive waste--has had on Aboriginal lands in Australia in the 20th century. It's special power is in Jessica Urwin's research and interviews with Indigenous people whose lands and lives were affected, and their continuing campaigns to resist nuclear colonialism. Aboriginal people spoke up about how damaging these terrible exploits by individual settlers and British and Australian governments were and took their protests all the way to the…

From Angela's 3 favorite reads in 2025.