Short description
Award-winning reporter Peter Eichstaedt chronicles how the U.S. government's frantic entry into the nuclear age injured--and continues to impact--Native Americans and their communities. From the first uranium mining to the full-scale nuclear build-up, Eichstaedt details the deadly legacy of America's desire to build an atomic industry at any cost.
Long description
The supply of uranium that fueled the Cold War came largely from the Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau. Some of the richest deposits were found on the Navajo Reservation, where about one-fourth of the miners and millers were Native Americans. Responding to an urgent plea to help defend our country, and eager to earn miners' wages, poverty-stricken Native Americans labored to feed the atomic mill. For nearly three decades in the face of growing evidence that uranium mining was dangerous, state and federal agencies neglected to warn the miners or to impose safety measures in the mines.