Book Review: Jacqueline Foertsch, Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America

Abstract

Book Review: Jacqueline Foertsch, Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America. Vanderbilt University Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0826519276 (Paperback). 251 Pages. $24.95.[Article copies available for fee from The Transformative Studies Institute. E-mail address: journal@transformativestudies.org Website: http://www. transiormativestudies, ors O2014 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.]For some, the quality of book can be measured twofold: by the material that it presents, and by the connections the reader makes to personal areas of research or interest. Expanding thought into other domains adds to the reader's understanding of complex issues, builds on previous knowledge, and extends intellectual discussion. Jacqueline Foertsch's Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America is book that does just that. It focuses on complex subject matter - the perpetual race problem between Blacks and Euro-Americans in the U.S., place, social position, the atom bomb, and the various popular cultural responses to these relationships during the Cold War era while encouraging readers to make further connections.Foertsch's book describes the perceived threat of an atom bomb attack on the U.S. during the Cold War through popular survivalist visions of post-nuclear future. Visions expressed by writers and artists of both populations via various genres, i.e. novels, music, journalism, film, use rhythm and language to describe the power and control in the postnuclear U.S. Among the many questions Foertsch raises are would society continue racism and exclusion, or would the past prove to be lessons learned? An what about interracial mating, and what would this mean to the future of White U.S.A.?Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America is organized around five chapters, an introduction, and conclusion. The introduction discusses the background of the topic and the approach taken by the author. Chapters one and two examine best selling [EuroAmerican] survivalist fiction of the period that politicizes, dramatizes, and indeed integrates the post-nuclear scenario (p. 24). Here, the social problem of race relations is at the center and discussed within the context of the science fiction novel. Chapters 3 and 4 focus on Black intellectual writing on both civil rights and nuclear holocaust, topics that at times intersect. Foertsch describes the loyalty of Black writers to both critical issues, dispelling the assumption that Blacks were indifferent to nuclear threat, instead solely keeping an eye on civil rights issues.As Foertsch explains, during this era, Black writers portrayed their people from historical perspective as victims, racially and socially marginalized, and undesirable. In post-nuclear Black literature context, however, they gain equality, very legitimate, natural right, albeit, in the guise of fantasy. Both approaches appear as protest literature, emphasizing the importance of popular, historical testimony within the Black American experience. Foertsch also describes the role of Black journalists acting as watchdogs, whenever political appointments and preparedness campaigns...failed to account sufficiently for the Black community (p. 27). While generally civil rights activists and intellectuals took an anti-nuclear stand, some opposed the bomb not for the threat it posed but for its association with hateful whiteness (p. 28). Chapter 5 of Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America, returns to discussion of Euro-American fiction, nonfiction and particularly, film a medium that has in some respects been effectively 'co-authored' by the presence of magnetic black leading men... and females ...who confront their audiences with vital questions regarding interracial post-war nuclear survival (p. 28). The conclusion discusses Black popular music, e.g., R&B, gospel, and jazz approaches to the atomic age from various perspectives, parallel to the diverse works of Black writers of the period. …