Thu, Oct 01
|Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse
Jon Else, Frenchman Flat: The Rise and Fall of Atomic Bombs
The story of a single nuclear bomb's deep origins, brief life during the Cold War, and lasting environmental and political legacies--as a fresh path to consider the entire sweep of the American nuclear enterprise.
Date, Time & Location
Oct 01, 2026, 6:00 PM MDT
Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse, 202 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
About the Event
Join us in-store or register to watch on Zoom.
Order Frenchman Flat: The Rise and Fall of Atomic Bombs($29.95, hardcover) online from CWB or call the store to order
A grave reminder of the frightening truth about nuclear testing, as international norms waver.
As the US and Russia let one treaty after another falter and expire, this urgent book reminds us of the price of those tests. Frenchman Flat recounts the science, politics, and human experience of those who developed nuclear weapons, suffered the consequences, and fought for and against arms control between the 1940s and 1990s. The throughline of this vast, complex story is a 37-kiloton atomic bomb dubbed "Priscilla" that was exploded above a custom-built mini-civilization at Frenchman Flat, Nevada, in 1957. Jon Else uses Priscilla and the bombs that preceded and followed to highlight the terrifying ways we have stockpiled and tested nuclear weapons, how near and often we…