Kate Brown (born ) is a Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of ''Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future'' (2019), ''Dispatches from Dystopia'' (2015), ''
Plutopia
''Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters'' is a 2013 book by American environmental historian Kate Brown. The book is a comparative history of the cities of Richland, in the northwest Uni ...
'' (2013), and ''A Biography of No Place'' (2004). She was a member of the faculty at the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...
(UMBC) from 2000 to 2018. She is the founding consulting editor o
History Unclassifiedin the ''
American Historical Review''.
Brown's work is distinguished by its combination of archival research, oral history, sensory observation, reflective autobiography, and innovative literary form in the writing of history. Her ''Manual for Survival'' (2019), a ground-level study of the impact of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction and was described by ''The Economist'' as “a magisterial blend of historical research, investigative journalism, and poetic reportage.” She is the only historian ever to receive the United States’ highest scholarly prizes in Russian studies, U.S. history, Western history, environmental history, and the history of the Americas—all for the same work, ''Plutopia'', a comparative study of nuclear production and social transformation in the cold-war United States and the Soviet Union. Brown is currently working on a global history and future o
urban farming
Brown has been the recipient of many of the signature honors in the arts and humanities. These include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Carnegie Fellowship, and a Berlin Prize Fellowship. Her ''A Biography of No Place'' (2004), a study of community and identity in eastern Europe's forgotten borderlands, received the
George Louis Beer Prize of the
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
(AHA), given for outstanding writing in European international history. ''Plutopia'' received three of the highest awards in American history: the AHA's
Albert J. Beveridge
Albert Jeremiah Beveridge (October 6, 1862 – April 27, 1927) was an American historian and US senator from Indiana. He was an intellectual leader of the Progressive Era and a biographer of Chief Justice John Marshall and President Abraham Linco ...
and
John H. Dunning
John Harry Dunning (26 June 1927 – 29 January 2009) was a British economist and is widely recognised as the father of the field of international business. He researched the economics of international direct investment and the multinational ...
awards and the
Ellis W. Hawley Prize The Ellis W. Hawley Prize is an annual book award by the Organization of American Historians for the best historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the A ...
of the
Organization of American Historians
The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S. and abroad inc ...
(OAH). The American Society of Environmental History awarded ''Plutopia'' the
George Perkins Marsh Prize
The George Perkins Marsh Prize is an annual book prize awarded by the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH). The prize, which was awarded bi-annually from its inception in 1989 until becoming an annual award in 2000, is awarded to wha ...
. In addition to these awards, ''Plutopia'' was honored with the principal award in Russian/Eurasian studies, as winner of the Wayne S. Vucinich Prize of the
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) is a scholarly society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about the former Soviet Union (including Eurasia) and Eastern and Central Europe. The ASEEES supports teachi ...
(ASEEES) for the most important work in that field in any discipline. ''Manual for Survival'' also received multiple scholarly awards, including the Reginald Zelnik Prize in Russian/Eurasian history and the Marshal D. Shulman Prize in foreign policy, both given by ASEEES. Brown's research has been supported by the
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
, the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the
European University Institute
The European University Institute (EUI) is an international postgraduate and post-doctoral teaching and research institute and an independent body of the European Union with juridical personality, established by the member states to contribu ...
, the
American Council of Learned Societies
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
, and other leading academic institutions.
Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland
This is a biography of a borderland between Russia and Poland, a region where, in 1925, people identified as Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians lived side by side. Over the next three decades, this mosaic of cultures was modernized and homogenized out of existence by the ruling might of the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, and finally, Polish and Ukrainian nationalism. By the 1950s, this “no place” emerged as a Ukrainian heartland, and the fertile mix of peoples that defined the region was destroyed.
Dispatches from Dystopia: A History of Places Not Yet Forgotten.
This collection of essays narrates the histories of locales that have been silenced, broken, or contaminated. In telling these previously unknown stories, Brown examines the making and unmaking of place, and the lives of the people who remain in the fragile landscapes that are left behind. The Atlantic elected Dispatches as one of th
Best Books We Read in 2016
Plutopia
Richland, Washington, was the first city established to support plutonium production at the nearby
Hanford nuclear site
The Hanford Site is a decommissioned nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County, Washington, Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. The site h ...
, to power the American nuclear weapons arsenals.
Ozersk, Russia, supported plutonium production to power the Soviet nuclear arsenals at the
Mayak
The Mayak Production Association (russian: Производственное объединение «Маяк», , from 'lighthouse') is one of the biggest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation, housing a reprocessing plant. The closest ...
nuclear plant. These were the first two cities in the world to produce
plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
for use in
cold war
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
atomic bombs.
In the 2013 book on a history of these two cities, ''
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters'' (Oxford), Kate Brown explores the health of affected citizens in both the United States and Russia, and the "slow-motion disasters" that still threaten the environments where the plants are located. According to Brown, the plants at Hanford and Mayak, over a period of four decades, "both released more than 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment -- twice the amount expelled in the
Chernobyl disaster
The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...
in each instance."
[
Brown says that most of this radioactive contamination over the years at Hanford and Mayak were part of normal operations, but unforeseen accidents did occur and plant management kept this secret, as the pollution continued unabated. Even today, as pollution threats to health and the environment persist, the government keeps knowledge about the associated risks from the public.][
]
''Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future''
Reviews
Noah Sneider of ''The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
'' praises the book as "a magisterial blend of historical research, investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...
and poetic reportage, Kate Brown sets out to uncover Chernobyl's true medical and environmental effects."
Philip Ball
Philip Ball (born 1962) is a British science writer. For over twenty years he has been an editor of the journal ''Nature'' for which he continues to write regularly. He now writes a regular column in '' Chemistry World''. He has contributed to ...
in the ''New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'' speaks about the depth about her research: "She has obtained documents and records that seemingly no one else had ever read, including some that were plainly meant to stay as buried as the contaminated Chernobyl waste. The result is an extraordinary and important – if controversial – book."
Vitali Vitaliev of The Institution of Engineering and Technology calls the book "a magnificent monograph that stands out among the multiple books on Chernobyl simply because it tells us the truth – the whole unadulterated truth – about one of the worst disasters in history." and comments on the effort to downplay the effects: "Let's face it: the minimisation and even trimming-up of history's worst nuclear catastrophe has become a popular sport with some Western intellectuals, among whom I can count some deluded colleagues and friends. They keep repeating like a mantra the ‘magic’ number 62, the official death toll immediately after the 1986 explosion. By doing so, not only do they ignore the plight of tens of thousands of victims of the disaster, many of them children, who have since died of different forms of radiation sickness and cancer, they overlook the treacherous nature of the nuclear contamination and residual radiation capable of manifesting themselves years and even centuries after the tragic event. As Brown, a distinguished American scholar, herself remarks in the final part of her book: “Ignorance about low-dose exposure is, I have argued, partly deliberate.” and goes on to note: "Why were – and are – they doing it? The publishers of ‘Manual for Survival’ rightly suggest in the jacket blurb that the motivation for “(Western) scientists and diplomats from international organisations ... to bury and discredit the evidence” is that they were “worried that this evidence would blow the lid on the effects of massive radiation, released from weapons testing during the Cold War.”
Serhii Plokhy
Serhii Plokhy, or Plokhii ( uk, Сергій Миколайович Плохій, russian: Серге́й Никола́евич Пло́хий; born 23 May 1957) is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University, whe ...
considers Browns research impressive and due to her 25 years of research in Ukraine, "Brown knows her landscape exceptionally well."
Writing in the ''Journal of Radiological Protection
''Journal of Radiological Protection'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering radiobiological research on all aspects of radiological protection, including non-ionizing as well as ionizing radiations. It is the official journal of ...
'', Jim T. Smith criticized many aspects of Brown's ''Manual for Survival.'' He describes Brown's book as "deeply flawed and clearly biased history of the health and environmental impacts of Chernobyl" He criticized Brown for cherry picking
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data th ...
writing "One of the major failings of this book is that the vast body of knowledge in the international scientific literature is almost completely ignored - except where it coincides with Brown's thesis." Jim T. Smith discloses in the conflict of interest section of his review, that he has previously receives funds from the nuclear energy industry.
Dr. Geraldine Thomas, professor of pathology at Imperial College and founder of the Chernobyl Tissue Bank, also criticizes Browns work. She states one flaw in Brown's logic: “It is just not true that the scientists try to minimize the effects of radiation. It would actually be against their own best interests to do so. They are mostly academics and are required to produce large amounts of money and papers for their institutes. You would be expecting them to argue for larger effects of radiation as the more serious the health consequences the more the money flows.”
Brown published a response to Smith's critique in the ''Journal of Radiological Protection
''Journal of Radiological Protection'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering radiobiological research on all aspects of radiological protection, including non-ionizing as well as ionizing radiations. It is the official journal of ...
'' RP In it, she notes that recent research is moving away from Smith's conclusions that nature in the Chernobyl Zone is thriving. A recent article in the JRP about the Kyshtym reserve in Siberia (the result of an explosion in an underground waste storage tank that released 20 million curies) ruled that 70 years later the affected forests have failed to recover to their pre-accident state; that the numbers of soil animals were 15%–77% of those observed in similar but uncontaminated sites. Smith fails to include in his review the work of researchers who show depressed populations in the Chernobyl Zone at all but the lowest doses, and similar findings from Fukushima that concur with Chernobyl data. Smith set up a non-profit to produce and sell “Atomic Vodka” from the Chernobyl Zone.
Jim Smith rebukes five of Brown's claims in his reply. For one he points out that she has dismissed evidence he presented to her and characterized him as a desk-bound physicist in her book, even though he has done regular field work in the Chernobyl exclusion zone over the decades. The other four points brown discusses goes in other claims Brown made in her response, with regards to evidence gathering and contacting other scientists.
Sophie Pinkham writes in ''The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'': "Brown writes about anticipating outraged letters from nuclear scientists and plant workers, oncology clinic staff, and others whose jobs require exposure to radiation. She details her scrupulous efforts to check and double-check her data, consult with scientists from many fields, and account for factors that might skew results. I suspect that she may be accused of alarmism nonetheless." She comments that the book is about more than Chernobyl: "Brown's careful mapping of the path isotopes take is highly relevant to other industrial toxins, and to plastic waste. When we put a substance into our environment, we have to understand that it will likely remain with us for a very long time, and that it may behave in ways we never anticipated. Chernobyl should not be seen as an isolated accident or as a unique disaster, Brown argues, but as an “exclamation point” that draws our attention to the new world we are creating."
Nick Slater of ''Current Affairs Current affairs may refer to:
News
* Current Affairs (magazine), ''Current Affairs'' (magazine) a bimonthly magazine of culture and politics.
* Current affairs (news format): a genre of broadcast journalism
* Current Affairs, former name for Behi ...
'' criticized flaws in Brown's research methods writing: "Although Brown's aims are certainly admirable—the arguments she uses to support them are not."
Books
*''A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Ukrainian Heartland'', 2004, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
.
*''Dispatches from Dystopia: Histories of Places Not Yet Forgotten'', 2015, University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
.
*'' Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters'', 2013, Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
.
*''Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future'', March 2019, W. W. Norton & Company.
Awards and honors
*2004 George Louis Beer Prize, American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
, ''A Biography of No Place''
*2009 Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
*2014 Ellis W. Hawley Prize The Ellis W. Hawley Prize is an annual book award by the Organization of American Historians for the best historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the A ...
for Best Book in Political History, Organization of American Historians
The Organization of American Historians (OAH), formerly known as the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, is the largest professional society dedicated to the teaching and study of American history. OAH's members in the U.S. and abroad inc ...
, ''Plutopia''
*201
Robert G. Athearn Prize
Western History Association, ''Plutopia''
*2014 George Perkins Marsh Prize
The George Perkins Marsh Prize is an annual book prize awarded by the American Society for Environmental History (ASEH). The prize, which was awarded bi-annually from its inception in 1989 until becoming an annual award in 2000, is awarded to wha ...
for Best Book in Environmental History, ''Plutopia''
*2014 Albert J. Beveridge Award The Albert J. Beveridge Award is awarded by the American Historical Association (AHA) for the best English-language book on American history (United States, Canada, or Latin America) from 1492 to the present. It was established on a biennial basis ...
from the American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
, ''Plutopia''
*2014 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) is a scholarly society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about the former Soviet Union (including Eurasia) and Eastern and Central Europe. The ASEEES supports teachi ...
, ''Plutopia''
*2015 John H. Dunning Prize The John H. Dunning Prize is a biennial book prize awarded by the American Historical Association for the best book in history related to the United States. The prize was established in 1929, and is regarded as one of the most prestigious national h ...
, American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
, ''Plutopia''
*2015 Election to the Society of American Historians
The Society of American Historians, founded in 1939, encourages and honors literary distinction in the writing of history and biography about American topics. The approximately 300 members include professional historians, independent scholars, jou ...
*2015 University of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Research
*2016-17, Carnegie Foundation Fellowship.
*2017 Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin
*2020 Ryszard Kapuściński Award, Long List, ''Manual for Survival''
*2020 National Book Critic Circle Finalist, ''Manual for Survival''
*2020 Pushkin House Award Shortlist, ''Manual for Survival''
*2020 Marshal D. Shulman Prize in foreign policy, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) is a scholarly society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about the former Soviet Union (including Eurasia) and Eastern and Central Europe. The ASEEES supports teachi ...
, ''Manual for Survival''
*2020 Reginald Zelnik Prize in Russian/Eurasian history, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) is a scholarly society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about the former Soviet Union (including Eurasia) and Eastern and Central Europe. The ASEEES supports teachi ...
, ''Manual for Survival''
*2021 Lаura Shannon Prize Finalist, Nanovic Institute for European Studies, ''Manual for Survival''
See also
*Eve Andree Laramee
Eve Andree Laramee is an installation artist whose works explores four primary themes: legacy of the atomic age, history of science, environment and ecology, social conditions. Her interdisciplinary artworks operate at the confluence of art and ...
*''The Plutonium Files
''The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War'' is a 1999 book by Eileen Welsome. It is a history of United States government-engineered radiation experiments on unwitting Americans, based on the Pulitzer Prize– ...
''
*Eileen Welsome
Eileen Welsome (born March 12, 1951) is an American journalist and author. She received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1994 while a reporter for ''The Albuquerque Tribune'' for a 3-part story titled "The Plutonium Experiment" published ...
*Ruth Faden
Ruth R. Faden is an American scientist, academic, and founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute's Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director from 2014 to 2016. Fa ...
* Nuclear weapons tests
*Downwinders
Downwinders were individuals and communities in the intermountain area between the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges primarily in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah but also in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho who were exposed to radioactive contam ...
*'' Nuclear Nebraska''
* Plutonium in the environment
* Pollution of the Lake Karachay
* Sacrifice zone
References
External links
UMBC home page
Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters
Excerpt from ''Plutopia''
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Kate
American non-fiction environmental writers
Living people
American women historians
University of Maryland, Baltimore County faculty
Place of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American historians
Plutonium
21st-century American women writers
1965 births