Fissionable Fears – Fearful Perspectives on the History of Nuclear Power

This article takes up the emotional history of nuclear energy as a foundation for analysing variations of fear surrounding the atom. It argues that nuclear technologies, while being heralded as a prime achievement of rational science, were always entwined with fears in different roles, which were expressed according to the goals of actors commenting on it. Fears, in other words, were not necessarily directed ‘against’ the use of atomic energy, but also used to argue for it. They mostly occurred in the form of fears of the atom, fears for the atom, or fears of not having access to the atom and its powers. To make this point, the article first provides a short overview of existing research into the emotional history of the peaceful use of nuclear energy, with a focus on fears; then sketches out central instances of fear in the technology’s general history; and finally analyses exemplary connections between fear and British and German left-wing actors, demonstrating that they did not, as tended to be implied by contemporary adversaries, simply succumb to a fear of the atom.