About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
What can photographs reveal about Canada’s nuclear footprint? The Bomb in the Wilderness contends that photography is central to how we interpret and remember nuclear activities. The impact and global reach of Canada’s nuclear programs have been felt ever since the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. But do photographs alert viewers to nuclear threat, numb them to its dangers, or actually do both? John O’Brian’s wide-ranging and personal account of the nuclear era presents and discusses over a hundred photographs, ranging from military images to the atomic ephemera of consumer culture. His fascinating analysis ensures that we do not look away.
Contributor Notes
John O’Brian is an art historian, writer, and curator. Until 2017, he taught at the University of British Columbia. He has authored or edited twenty books, including Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism – one of The New York Times Notable Books of the Year – and Ruthless Hedonism. His publications on nuclear photography include Strangelove’s Weegee, Camera Atomica, Through Post-Atomic Eyes, and Atomic Postcards: Radioactive Messages from the Cold War. He has organized five exhibitions on nuclear photography, in Copenhagen, London, Toronto, and Vancouver, and is a recipient of the Thakore Award in Human Rights and Peace Studies from Simon Fraser University.
Awards
- Commended, The Alcuin Society Awards for Excellence in Book Design: Prose Illustrated
Editorial Reviews
Employing an accessible yet scholarly approach, O'Brian does scholars of environmental, nuclear, and Cold War-era visual culture a great service as he brings together images and ideas in an interconnected web of analysis that complicates the chronological narrative of events, [showing] us that photography may either alert us to nuclear risk or numb us to its dangers.
— BC Studies
O’Brian’s history of Canada’s involvement in the nuclear story forms an eye-opening reminder that, however we perceive the world, our individual view is never the whole picture.
— University of Toronto Quarterly
Art historian O’Brian has brought together all his powers of observation and perception to help us rethink how we view the history and the mystery of the bomb.
— The Ormsby Review
