Andy Kirk (History) is the author of the new graphic history, Doom Towns: The People and Landscapes of Atomic History, which was released last week by Oxford University Press. The book grew out of Kirk's work over the past 10 years on the award-winning Department of History & Sociology, Nevada Test Site Oral History Project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Education.

The history of atomic testing is usually told as a story about big technology, science, and complex global politics. Doom Towns explains critical technological developments and the policies that drove weapons innovation within the context of the specific environments and communities where testing actually took place. The book emphasizes the people who participated, protested, or were affected by atomic testing and explains the decision-making process that resulted in these people and places becoming the only locations and groups to actually experience nuclear warfare during the Cold War. The graphic history presents various viewpoints directly linked to primary sources that reveal the complexity and uncertainty of this history to readers, while also providing evidence and access to archives to help them explore this controversial topic further and to reach their own informed conclusions about this history.