Deadly Sunshine: The History and Fatal Legacy of Radium

by David I. Harvie

From its discovery by Marie Curie, radium was treated as some sort of wonder element. Capable of preventing disease, being used by quacks and doctors alike, it had thousands of uses. All that was to change by the 1920s. As radiation poisoning was being studied seriously, the deadly effects of radium were known and the wonder element was beginning to be feared. What of the legacy today? There are over 500 sites in the UK alone where radium was used or produced, all contaminated in some way. Some of these sites have been re-developed with no regard for the danger they pose or in ignorance of their past. On at least one heavily contaminated site, a housing project has been built.

Genres: Science

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

More than the writing, I loved the content of this book. Radium has an intensely interesting history, and I was so excited to learn more about its discovery, use in household products, and the devastating impact it had. Harvie definitely delivers that. However, the book is also extremely dense, and that made it difficult to get through. The chapters were very long, with no obvious "stopping points" where I could easily put down the book. More natural breaks and/or shorter chapters would have made the book a lot more fun to read.

Overall, I learned a lot from it, and as I said, the content was fabulous. Radium is crazy!

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great read that was well-written for the average reader. I find anything dealing with radioactivity to be fascinating, and this book depicted radium's history in terrific detail.