Nuking Alaska: Notes of an Atomic Fugitive

As if, in midcentury Alaska, you needed more ways to die.

From the creator of the critically acclaimed graphic novel My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson's comes an unnervingly funny tale of life in Alaska during the tensest times of the Cold War.

Peter Dunlap-Shohl grew up on the front lines of the Cold War in the 1950s and '60s, where Alaska residents lived in the shadow of a nuclear arsenal nine times the size of the Soviet Union's. This graphic novel recounts the surprising and tragicomic details of the nuclear threats faced by Alaskans, including Project Chariot, championed by Edward Teller and his "firecracker boys" in the late 1950s and early '60s; the nearly nuclear disaster caused by the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964; and the 1971 test of a nuclear warhead on the island of Amchitka. Dunlap-Shohl shares the terrible consequences that these events and others had for humans and animals alike, all in the service of "atoms for peace."

Drawn with Dunlap-Shohl's characteristic editorial cartooning style, Nuking Alaska is a fast-paced reminder of how close we came to total annihilation just a half century ago--and how terribly relevant the nuclear threat remains to this day.

Author: Peter Dunlap-Shohl
Publisher: Graphic Mundi - Psu Press
Published: 06/27/2023
Pages: 104
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.74lbs
Size: 8.40h x 6.30w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781637790472


Review Citation(s):
Foreword 04/27/2023
Publishers Weekly 05/29/2023
Booklist 06/01/2023 pg. 55

About the Author

Peter Dunlap-Shohl worked as a cartoonist for the Anchorage Daily News for over a quarter of a century. As a (nearly) life-long Alaskan, he has survived earthquakes, oil spills and moose charges. He is the author of My Degeneration, a graphic novel about coping with young-onset Parkinson's disease. He and his wife Pam now divide their time between Alaska and eastern Washington State.