The Nuclear War Atlas
- Title:
- The Nuclear War Atlas
- Alternate Title:
- The Nuclear War Atlas
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Bunge, William
- Other Creators:
- The Society for Human Exploration, Victoriaville, Quebec, publisher.
- Date:
- 1982
- Date 2:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2364.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2364_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1960 - Present
- Subject:
- Communism & Cold War
Disaster/Health/Environment
Pictorial
Politics & Government - Measurement:
- 51 x 86 sheet (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- The 1982 Nuclear War Atlas is "a crude but fiery set of maps that railed against the powerful weapons of the Cold War." Barney 2015, 23. The introduction (verso, ID #2364.02) says a great deal not only about this important work, but about its maker, the radical geographer, peace activist and self-styled revolutionary William Bunge: “Due to geographers’ near criminal neglect, the current plethora of literature on nuclear war is . . . essentially warmed over material [that] trivializes the geography of nuclear war. . . . By missing the geographic extent of the problem, the literature misses the solution, . . . immobilizing the public at a time when they most need to be aroused. . . . Therefore, gentle reader, . . . act for peace as if the lives of the children in your family, and your very own personal life too, depended upon it.” Bunge himself wrote in 1983 that "the recently published Nuclear War Atlas is one of the most important geographic works ever written, because it is about the most important subject ever addressed." Quoted ibid. 210.
The “Atlas” itself is a large broadsheet dominated by 28 small maps, each accompanied by text. The maps are divided into four loosely-described subjects. Two of these sections concern nuclear weapons effects: “Blast” (including “The Fire-Storm”); and “Radiation.” The “Star Wars” section is mostly about proliferation and the futility of defense. The final section, “The Future,” contains maps on a variety of issues, including nuclear weapons accidents, infant mortality, environmental pollution of Canada by the U.S. (from industrial pollution and acid rain as well as potential radioactive fallout), historic periods of global extinction, and “Regions of recent and often repeated genocide” (including all of North America).
"The message of Bunge's maps is both crude and devastating," "an angry salvo" of unremitting, universal "carnage." Bunge himself called his maps "terrible" and "horrific." Barney 2015, 192, 210. He uses a full range of persuasive mapping techniques: bright red and deep black colors; a variety of dramatic pictorial elements (the faces of blinded or starving survivors) ; provocative titles (“Nuclear Poison Gas Cloud,” “The March of Doom”); and large boldface text on the maps themselves (“Blindness,” “Burns,” “Starvation”). And the message is reinforced on the verso , which is dense with charts and text providing meticulously sourced scientific and historic information supporting the maps.
William Bunge is a colorful and fascinating figure in the history of post-World War II cartography: “spatial scientist,” “cult hero,” “disciplinary bad boy” and “radical geographic crusader.” Barney 2015, 192; see generally ibid. 192-214. As a young academic at Wayne State University in the early 1960s, Bunge moved to Fitzgerald, a one-square mile ghetto neighborhood of Detroit. The social turmoil of the time, particularly the 1967 Detroit riots, led him to undertake an extensive "democratic as opposed to an elitist expedition" of the neighborhood. Barnes 2011, 713. His work, eventually published as Fitzgerald: Geography of a Revolution (1971), is described - even by one of its enthusiastic supporters - as "a tortured book, controversial, angry, partial, withering, and hyperbolic. . . . at the polar end of traditional academic scholarship." Ibid. 712. See, e.g., ID #2156.01, “Direction of Money Transfers in Metropolitan Detroit.”
Bunge was denied tenure by Wayne State as a result of obscenity charges. In 1968 the House Un-American Activities Committee blacklisted him, along with other "radicals," from speaking on American campuses. (His name was listed between H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael.) At that point, he moved to Canada and became a "nomad cartographer," seeking visiting lectureships, working with underground publishers - and driving a cab in Toronto. Barney 195; Barnes 714. The 1982 Nuclear War Atlas was in the form of a large poster, folded down to a pamphlet-sized 5 x 8 inches and distributed at peace rallies and demonstrations. Barnes 200. Bunge greatly expanded the number of maps (from 28 to 57) and the supporting text for the eventual publication of the Atlas in book form in 1988. See ID ##2188.01-.09. Bunge wrote in the Preface to the book (at ix), "Hopefully, at last my fellow revolutionaries will show some keen interest in conducting revolution without annihilation."
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- Image
- Rights:
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