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Books > History > American history > From 1900 > Postwar, from 1945 > Vietnam War
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The Defoliation of America - Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,176
Discovery Miles 11 760
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The Defoliation of America - Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and Protests (Hardcover)
Series: NEXUS
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Examines the domestic and international use of phenoxy herbicides
by the United States in the mid-twentieth century. In The
Defoliation of America: Agent Orange Chemicals, Citizens, and
Protests, Amy M. Hay profiles the attitudes, understandings, and
motivations of grassroots activists who rose to fight the use of
phenoxy herbicides, or Agent Orange chemicals as they are commonly
known, in various aspects of American life during the post-WWII
era. Hay focuses her analysis on citizen responses to illuminate
how regulatory policies were understood, challenged, and
negotiated, contributing to a growing body of research on chemical
regulatory policies, risk society, and hazardous chemicals. This
volume uncovers new understandings about the authority of the state
and its obligation to society, the role of scientific authority and
expertise, and the protests made by various groups of citizens.
First introduced in 1946, phenoxy herbicides mimic hormones in
broadleaf plants, causing them to "grow to death" while grass,
grains, and other monocots remain unaffected. By the 1950s,
millions of pounds of these chemicals were produced annually for
use in brush control, weed eradication, forest management, and
other agricultural applications. Pockets of skepticism and
resistance began to appear by the late 1950s, and the trend
intensified after 1962 when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring directed
mainstream attention to the harm modern chemicals were causing in
the natural world. It wasn't until the Vietnam War, however, when
nearly 19 million gallons of Agent Orange and related herbicides
were sprayed to clear the canopy and destroy crops in Southeast
Asia, that the long-term damage associated with this group of
chemicals began to attract widespread attention and alarm. Using a
wide array of sources and an interdisciplinary approach, Hay
contributes to the robust fields of chemical toxicity, regulation,
environmental management, and public health. This study of the
scientists, health and environmental activists, and veterans who
fought US chemical regulatory policies and practices reveals the
mechanisms, obligations, and constraints of state and scientific
authority in mid-twentieth-century America. Hay also shows how
these disparate and mostly forgotten citizen groups challenged the
political consensus and contested government and industry
narratives of chemical safety.
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