Project Plowshare, the fifteen-year U.S. program to use nuclear explosives to construct canals, enlarge ports, build storage facilities and roads, mine for ores and hydrocarbons—that is, for purposes not related to war—has been largely forgotten by the public. Reading Scott Kaufman's comprehensive history of the program takes us back to an earlier, more naïve period when scientists were confident about their ability to undertake massive engineering projects while controlling for harmful consequences. It is a fascinating story of scientific and bureaucratic hubris, what the political scientist James C. Scott calls “high modern authoritarianism,” in which well-meaning technocratic plans for the betterment of humankind ultimately (and thankfully, many would argue) did not succeed.
Kaufman's book tells the story of how these grandiose schemes generated high hopes for the peaceful uses of nuclear explosives, only to see faith in science succumb to political and economic realities. Budget stringencies played a role in...