Day of Two Suns: U.S. Nuclear Testing and the Pacific Islanders

by Jane Dibblin

Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. conducted some 66 nuclear bomb tests in the Marshall Islands. In 1959, this scattering of coral atolls was again chosen as the testing site for a new generation of weapons―long-range missiles fired in the U.S. Then in 1984 a missile fired from California was intercepted by one from Kwajalein SDI, or Star Wars, was declared a realizable dream. As military researcher Owen Wilkes has "If we could shut down the Pacific Missile Range, we could cut off half the momentum of the nuclear race." This is the story of the preparations for war which every day impinge on tire lives of Pacific Islanders caught on the cutting edge of the nuclear arms race. It is the story of a displaced people contaminated by nuclear fallout, forcibly resettled as their own islands become uninhabitable, and reduced to lives of poverty, ill-health, and dependence. It is also a stirring account of the Marshall Islanders themselves, of their resilience and protest, and of their attempts to seek redress in the courts. It is a shocking and timely study.

Genres: History

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 1990

Reviews

[Jazmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking first hand accounts. I finished it in one sitting.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very emotional book, definitely coming from a perspective of social justice and anti-nuclear activism. That doesn't mean it's not worth reading--I think that the story of nuclear testing in the Pacific, especially in the Marshall Islands, is extremely important and not very well-known. Juxtapose that history with the future impacts of climate change and rising sea levels, and you get more context as to why Pacific Islanders have such a fraught relationship with the colonial/former colonial countries.