Paul S. Boyer (1935–2012)

In By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age, Paul Boyer argues that in the first few years after American use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki “the fundamental perceptions which continue to influence our response to the nuclear menace were first articulated, discussed, and absorbed into the living tissue of the culture” (pg. 367). Boyer uses novels, radio broadcasts, popular music, popular periodicals, and polling data in his show more examination, juxtaposing them against government policy documents to demonstrate the conflict between mass culture and military culture. He writes, “Another surprise as I narrowed my focus to 1945-1950 was the realization of how quickly contemporary observers understood that a profoundly unsettling new cultural factor had been introduced – that the bomb had transformed not only military strategy and international relations, but the fundamental ground of culture and consciousness” (pg. xix). Boyer concludes, “Unless we recover this lost segment of our cultural history, we cannot fully understand the world in which we live, nor be as well equipped as we might to change it” (pg. xix).
Boyer’s analysis broadly examines the role of scientists in spreading information about the threat of atomic war, hopes for the future through atomic energy, predictions of the future role of atomic power, the moral debate about nuclear war, and the role of culture. Describing the immediate aftermath of Hiroshima, Boyer argues, “It would be wrong to conclude that Americans took the bomb casually or that its impact quickly faded. Just below the surface, powerful currents of anxiety and apprehension surged through the culture” (pg. 12). Further, “Physically untouched by the war, the United States at the moment of victory perceived itself as naked and vulnerable. Sole possessors and users of a devastating new instrument of mass destruction, Americans envisioned themselves not as a potential threat to other peoples, but as potential victims” (pg. 14). Scientists entered the public foray during these early years, helping to shape the narrative. Regarding the role of scientist activists, Boyer writes, “Many scientists concluded after August 6, 1945, that it was their urgent duty to try to shape official policy regarding atomic energy…Many of the post-Hiroshima cultural developments…cannot be fully understood without attention to the remarkable public role played by the atomic scientists” (pg. 49). While they did not create fears of annihilation, scientists did act upon them and help inform those public fears. Boyer writes, “To many post-Hiroshima social observers, fear represented a potent lever of social change. From mass terror would spring mass demand for the radical transformation of the international order upon which survival depended” (pg. 69). Unfortunately for the scientists, the immediate results of the first Bikini atoll tests actually dampened peoples’ fears rather than stoke them.
In contrast to fear, Boyer writes, “Along with the shock waves of fear, one also finds exalted prophecies of the bright promise of atomic energy. The more euphoric of these predictions soon faded, but the upbeat theme proved remarkably tenacious” (pg. 109). This led to an either/or mentality regarding atomic power, in which it represented either the doom of humanity or the pathway to a bright utopia. Boyer summarizes, “Presented this way, the issue did have a certain symmetry and simplicity – certainly more symmetry and simplicity than the alternative view, rarely heard in these years, that atomic energy might be both mankind’s scourge and benefactor” (pg. 126). Alongside this debate, Boyer argues that, in the cultural realm, “the bomb…unleashed the first wave of speculation about what would come to be called ‘post-industrial’ society” (pg. 141). To this end, the social sciences worked to fill the gap as “many social scientists in this post-Hiroshima period embraced the view that they possessed knowledge and expertise essential to mankind’s survival” (pg. 169). On the moral end of the equation, Boyer writes, “‘Hiroshima’ and ‘Nagasaki’ stand as signposts marking both a gash in the living flesh of our historical consciousness and a turning point in our ethical history: the concluding events of a ‘good’ war, the opening events of a murky era of moral ambiguity and uncertainty through which we still wander” (pg. 182). Many Americans initially supported the decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki, believing that it ended the war sooner and saved lives. While the opinion may have waned, Americans largely left the issue unquestioned, and it dropped away from popular culture.
Culturally, Boyer writes, “Apart from a few isolated voices, however, the initial literary response to the atomic bomb was, to say the least, muted” (pg. 246). Many struggled for the right tone or content in the face of such hitherto unseen destruction. Boyer writes, “What was the appropriate aesthetic for the bomb? If an air raid on a small Spanish town could inspire one of Picasso’s greatest canvases, or the individual brutalities of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain Goya’s most powerful work, how was one to respond imaginatively to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, still more, to the prospect of world holocaust?” (pg. 250). Science fiction, however, provided an answer. According to Boyer, “The atomic bomb was now reality, and the science-fiction stories that dealt with it amply confirm the familiar insight that for all its exotic trappings, science fiction is best understood as a commentary on contemporary issues” (pg. 258). According to Boyer, the culture of the atomic age had a similar impact on Americans as the two world wars combined on Europeans and others (pg. 279). Following the successful detonation of a Soviet atomic bomb and the beginning of the Cold War, Americans “seemed not only ready to accept the bomb, but to support any measures necessary to maintain atomic supremacy” (pg. 334). The bomb lost its image as a grim specter and took its place among the United States’ other weapons.
Boyer describes two other phases of atomic paranoia, the first preceding the Cuban Missile Crisis and the second during the early years of the Reagan administration, when hawkish speeches and posturing further triggered fears. According to Boyer, “Except for a post-holocaust ‘Nuclear Winter,’ every theme and image by which we express our nuclear fear today had its counterpart in the immediate post-Hiroshima period” (pg. 364). The only difference is that now the reality outpaces the imaginings of experts. show less

Everybody knows about the Salem witch trials – if for no other reason than their constant use as a metaphor for everything from the McCarthy hearings to the War on Terrorism. However, that knowledge generally starts and stops with the trials and hangings. The authors of Salem Possessed, using a prodigious amount of research on obscure original sources (church records, land titles, wills, etc.) plausibly contend that the witch trials were the culmination of years of controversy and show more infighting in Salem Village, most of which had nothing to do with witches.


First off, the authors set the background by pointing out that the trials were held in Salem Village, not Salem Town. If you’re not from the eastern US, you should note that “town” is a political subdivision smaller than a county, which may or may not be associated with a particular conglomeration of buildings. As it happened, most of the population of Salem Town lived in the built up zone, but most of the actual town area was rural farmland. This dichotomy was the original cause of conflict. The rural farmers lived some distance from the town center (up to 20 miles), yet were supposed to pay town taxes, appear in town when it was their turn to participate in the watch, and attend church in town.


Authors Boyer and Nissenbaum go into detail over the difference between attending church – in 17th century New England, everybody attended church – and being a member of a church. Church membership was supposedly limited to a fraction of the community. I had never heard of this distinction before, but it figures in the subsequent history. (Annoyingly, Boyer and Nissenbaum don’t specify what someone had to do to become a church member).

The residents of Salem Village (once again, there’s just a scatter of farm buildings, with a slight concentration along the Ipswich Road) wanted their own church, so they wouldn’t have to trudge all the way to Salem Town (technically, this was to be a “meetinghouse” rather than a “church”). However, only church members could “call” a minister, and almost all the church members lived in Salem Town and had no particular interest in losing the tax revenue from Salem Village (a good chunk of the taxes went to pay the minister’s salary, and if Salem Village had their own minister they wouldn’t be paying that part of the taxes to Salem town any more). As a result, in 1672 the inhabitants of Salem Village petitioned the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony to allow a vote by all the inhabitants on a minister, rather than just the church members. And the General Court granted the request. This set up Salem Village as a unique political entity; with a small degree of independence from Salem Town, but without political institutions – the only power the village had was to elect a five-member Committee, and the only power the Committee had was to collect the minister tax. Nevertheless, the village tended to treat the Committee as if it was a governing body, and the Committee tended to act that way. And, in the American tradition, the village immediately split into two contending political parties; those who supported the current minister (first James Bayley (1672-1679), then George Burroughs (1680-1683), then Deodat Lawson (1684-1688), then Samuel Parris (1689-1697)) and those who opposed him.


Samuel Parris, then, was the village minister when Satan showed up in 1692. Everybody probably knows the witchcraft part of the story; three preadolescent girls (one of them Parris’s daughter and another his niece) undertook an apparently innocent attempt to predict their future husbands by observing the shape of an egg white dropped in a bowl of water. One of the girls was frightened when her egg white looked like a coffin. Shortly afterwards, the girls began exhibiting “strange” behavior; disordered speech, random motions, and “fits”. This is what got Parris into trouble; what he should have done was call in the legal authorities – witchcraft was a civil crime, not a religious one. What he did instead was hold prayer meetings and give sermons. This gave ammunition to his opponents, who began arresting and jailing suspected witches themselves. (Many previous commentaries have cast Parris as some sort of evil inquisitor, while in fact he was clearly very reluctant to let matters go to the civil authorities. However, once the trials started he participated). Matters were further complicated because at the time Massachusetts Bay Colony had no legal government; the previous Royal Governor had been deposed in the aftermath of The Glorious Revolution and no new one had been appointed. Thus the accused witches (including a four year old girl) were held without trial until it could be done legally.


There were six accused witches in jail by the end of March, 22 more in April, and 39 more in May (interesting numbers considering the Salem Village population was just over 200). In June the new Royal Governor arrived and trials and executions began. Apparently the witches were not impressed and accusations continued until the authorities no longer bothered to keep track of them. In total, 19 people died; one in prison, one by pressing to death for refusal to plead, and the remainder by hanging (nobody was burned at the stake, despite numerous movies to the contrary). One of the fatalities was George Burroughs, the former minister who hadn’t lived in the village for 9 years (he was serving as a minister in Maine). However, after testimony that he had done wizardly feats while in the village (“picking up a heavy gun using only his finger thrust in the barrel”) and had appeared as a specter to some of the afflicted girls in Salem Village while his physical body was in Maine, he was arrested, brought back to Salem, tried, and hanged.


Contrary to the popular myth of inquisitorial religious persecution, it was two of the prominent religious figures in Massachusetts Bay Colony – Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather – that finally slowed down and stopped the trials and executions, mostly by casting doubt on the reliability of evidence. I was especially surprised by Cotton Mather, since he’s always been cast as one of the villains in the whole episode (see the Stephen Vincent Benét poem). The author’s yeoman work on available documentary evidence suggests what was actually going on. Most of the accused – and there are maps showing where everybody lived – were not neighbors of their accusers but lived at some distance; people’s immediate neighbors tended to defend them in court rather than accuse them. Interestingly, this seems to conflict with another of the authors’ claims – that people tended to accuse those toward whom they had behaved in an un-neighborly fashion – for example, those that the had refused to lend equipment.


Not the world’s easiest read; the text tends to jump around chronologically depending on what point the authors are making – but interesting from a historical debunking standpoint. show less

A collection of primary sources, including the actual court record and follow up to the Salem Witch Trials. Using these, the reader can see a pattern emerges. Acts of witchcraft become more elaborate only after the accused are arrested.

For example, Ann Putnam Jr. says she saw the apparition of Sarah Good. Elizabeth Hubbard follows suit, verbatim, 3 days later. Suddenly Good can call familiars, shapeshift among other wondrous acts. But why Sarah Good? Good was poor, and often quarreled with show more those who boarded her out of charity. The same goes to Rebecca Nurse. Rebecca Nurse is accused by Ann Putnam Jr and 3 days later, Ann's mother supports this testimony and adds Martha Corey's name for good measure. But, as it turns out, Nurse had quarreled years ago with neighbors over pigs trampling her field. Bridget Bishop later falls into the same situation over unpaid debt.

This is just a fraction of what is included here. The book also includes land transactions, comments from outside authorities, family relations and remarks from Salem ministers. If you had no idea how deep Salem factions and grudges were before, well with this resource, you can definitely draw some obvious conclusions. show less

Where do I start? I Tweeted this book should have been titled: The Enduring Revision! And that was just after the second chapter. The book is a college textbook of American history, covering primarily the continent from 16th century to the year 1877. This book contains more eye-rolls per page than a politician’s stump speech. Supposedly, as the back cover attests, this Seventh Edition has been “revised line-by-line to create a sharper narrative” despite already being “[k]nown for its show more focus on the environment and the land.”

I quickly reached a point in the book where I wanted to vomit next time I read the word elite. Their Seventh Edition must have been updated to include more class warfare! Somehow, the wealthy and ruling class miraculously managed to avoid most – if not all – of the travesties encountered by the poor, down-trodden underclass. From the Virginia Company colonists to the Founding Fathers to the textile mills of Lowell, Massachusetts, the rich were immune to natural problems like poverty, illness, and harsh environments. In fact, the very lacking index lists at least six pages that include “Elites” as a major point.
Since I will refrain from nit-picking almost something from every page, I will just make a few observations.

Chapter 1 quickly summarizes the continents of North and South America prior to the 16th century. The suspected travel of aboriginal people is used to illustrate how different and distinct cultures set up shop in vastly different areas. However, to effectively pit “them against us,” the entirety of Native Americans are treated as one homogenous group; slight variations are inconsequential when the benevolence of societies and nations are compared to Western Europeans who mercilessly floated across the Atlantic looking to enslave and proselytize.

The original inhabitants couldn’t get away from the author’s near epithet of elite! Writing of non farming peoples, as late as C.E. 1 (AD for those not politically correct), “[t]rade and warfare with interior groups strengthened the wealth and power of chiefs and other elites.” Even though this notation lends proof that power hunger is human nature, we are to believe it is just a white man’s disease.

Another reflection of human nature we are to avoid instilling in our idea of native peoples is imperialism. Writing of the Aztecs on page 8, it is documented that “they collected taxes” from those living as far away from the capitol as one-hundred miles away. Gasp, the Aztec also collected tribute from “[c]onquered peoples farther away… which replaced the free exchange of goods formerly carried on with neighbors.”

For time immemorial and in all ways, the Indians far exceeded the Europeans in green thumbery. Many of the plains Indians relocated to the Midwest around C.E. 1200 after “densely concentrated societies had taxed a fragile environment with a fluctuation climate.” “Woodland peoples’” were much better, not because of a potentially more stable climate, but their “land management was environmentally sound and economically productive.” When the men “occasionally lost control of a fire” utilized to clear underbrush from forests, hunting grounds were no longer suitable for game so they had women plant gardens in their stead. Unlike a forest fire of today, which destroys the land forever, “[g]round cover eventually” allowed the Indians to return by “restoring fertility naturally.”

We always hear of how many Native Americans the European killed over the time of colonization, billions if tallied up the toll from both continents from the first encounter. Like an Olympic gymnast, the authors bend over backwards to present a flawless people pre-European bringing their boom-boom sticks and small pox. Explaining the practices of some plains inhabitants, the ubiquitous bison was a literal “cash cow” or gift horse; the entire animal supplied humans with necessities. To collect these bison, they were driven off cliffs and retrieved from the gully to be processed. As they do offer a small caveat, the authors make note that in the absence of preserving more meat than could be consumed in a timely manner, this practice was “especially wasteful.” Have no fear; the flexible authors stick the landing! One sentence before admitting no records exist which enumerates the bison aside from “amazed” Europeans, the qualifying factor lessens impact upon the Indian’s reputation. Indiscriminately running bison off a cliff to kill many in one running, it had virtually no impact. “Yet humans were so few in number that they had no significant impact on the bison population before the arrival of Europeans.”

On the “eve of European contact” the authors point out of the 75 million Western Hemisphere inhabitants. By 1500 “[b]etween 7 million to 10 million Indians were unevenly distributed across North America.” The famous slaughter of bison by steel horse riding Americans occurs later than this book covers, but over centuries a larger number of Native Americans couldn’t do more damage than a comparatively smaller number of gun-toting tourists did in a few years. Emotions are stroke by visual messages, while we have no pictures of heaping bison carcasses at the foot of a coulee after an Indian’s harvest, we have ear-to-ear grinning Eastern seaboard Yankee standing in front of a mountain of bison hides.

To conclude my critique of just Chapter 1, from page 14, the native peoples are summed up: “Despite the vast differences among Native American societies, all were based on kinship, reciprocity, and communal ownership of resources. Trade facilitated the exchange not only of goods but also of technologies and ideas.” I suppose it is our spinning of history which paints the arrow-slinging and horse riding warrior in an effort to minimize them to savages. The book downplays violence as if sporadic and inconsequential by claiming “Native American warfare generally remained minimal.” Natives didn’t want to “conquer land” or “inflict massive casualties” but in a lighthearted rivalry, war games were merely to “humiliate one another and seize captives.”

Perhaps these “captives” were to be used in peace brokerage and not harmed in any way. Citing some nameless “New England officer” who described witnessing a battle he thought it to be more of a pastime, in his opinion they had no intention to “conquer or subdue enemies.” “He concluded that ‘they might fight for seven years and not kill seven men’.” Just like a European football match, a simple rivalry might end in a hooligan accidentally fatally injuring another spectator in after-game frivolities; these war games were inconsequential for the natives!

One has to wonder what a “significant minority” constitutes as the authors note on page 154. This apparent influential non-majority of note either disagreed with or was ambivalent towards the Declaration of Independence. Supposedly the signers of the Declaration and their supporters were an insignificant majority? The elite were depicted throughout the book as a cabal of as few all-powerful men. For instance they played the timeless 'inheritance card': “Except for Benjamin Franklin and a few others, most wealthy colonists inherited their fortunes.” It goes on to lament the working man’s case whose “personal success was limited and came through hard work, if at all.” (pg 99)

So on one hand the die is set as a small handful of wealthy white men declared their independence from Britain; while this small band of wealth hoarders encouraged gullible saps to back them? This however doesn’t make sense. Only five pages later, in a sub-heading of chapter four (pg 104) labeled “The Rise of Colonial Elites”, it is stated that a “few colonists benefited disproportionately from the growing wealth of Britain and its colonies.” (pg 104)

The word elite wasn’t married to the term “significant minority,” so I assume the wealthy Tories were not a part of the underwhelming mass opposed to the Declaration; therefore, using the author’s classification for groups in the non-elite majority, artisans, laborers, women, free and enslaved blacks, and other poor with boot prints scuffed onto their necks were for the Declaration? Now that I am utterly confused, parsing their logic and terminology, it would appear the minority of elites created a majority hoping to free America from the monarchy which made them wealthy. These elites swayed enough of the artisan class into agreeing to no longer be subjects of the British like cunning Pied Pipers, but successfully left the poor unaware that they were pawns in a elite versus elite war of independence?

On page 97 the authors take advantage of a quote, painting Mr. Franklin as a xenophobic miser. Lamenting over his concern that “so numerous” were immigrants in Pennsylvania that they would “Germanize us instead of us Anglicizing them,” the authors quip that it was “the same ungenerous spirit” that caused him to object to the slave trade. They finish this notation on Benjamin Franklin’s life by flatly stating he “suggested that the colonists send rattlesnakes to Britain in return for its convict laborers.” His piece was spoken of here as straight forward, as serious. Its message was deftly tied to his labor stealing rejection and slavery as equatable. Recognizing my lack of a Ph.D., I may be off-base and have misunderstood Benjamin Franklin’s commentary Rattle-snakes for Felons, but I thought it to be tongue-in-cheek.

Thankfully, aware this book is geared towards students, the authors made an effort to point out one “tongue-in-cheek” story. Citing an effort to increase Sacramento Valley’s economic development, the improbability “of a 250-year-old man” only finally succumbing to death only by leaving the prosperity of the valley needs to be apparently clarified. Juxtaposing this notation with my previously mentioned Ben Franklin example, and he comes off dour and serious, when the author of Poor Richard’s Almanack and numerous irreverent yet poignant letters and editorials was anything but.

Everything in America’s past is open to derision and disgust; therefore, it was no surprise to read their constant slam of American free-market system throughout the book. No better example can be found on page 410, during coverage of the gold rush. “Yet rampant prejudice against the Chinese did not stop some American businessmen from hiring them as contract workers for the American mining combinations that were forming in the 1850s.” It is undeniable that Americans (past and present) can hold prejudices and conduct business with exclusionary motives in mind. But what better time to show that free association and an open-market system can overcome personal beliefs?

On its face, the mention of what factory workers faced on page 387, sounds debilitating. “In an age when a horse cost the average worker three months’ pay…, the idea of solving industrial problems by resettling workers on farms seemed like a pipe dream.” Reflecting on this snippet of immigration and land reform coverage in the 1840s, it is amazing that America lasted past the Civil War! Stopping to ponder the significance of the cost of a horse, in modern comparison, things haven’t changed much. Having no urge to relocate to the countryside, a more apt analogy for me would be a used car. For most Americans, a $7,000 to $10,000 used automobile would be about three months’ salary; however, without getting into specifics, immigrant settlers probably didn’t have GMAC and 60-month terms.

My final contention with this book (that I will write about here) is the lack of references. Perhaps, in an effort to economize for “price-conscious students” (back cover) or save trees, there are two major shortcomings. First, the book neglects to contain a list of references. I understand this is a textbook and it needs to convey an air of authority, but we are students and facilitating an investigative spirit seems important. Providing other materials to read or evaluate, I believe would be nice. Save for the occasional title of an important document or influential book in America’s history, there are no citations to quotes.

Secondly, and most importantly, the index is poorly constructed. For a prime example, the book spends a large amount of pages on the development of political parties after the First Congress. The Federalists and Republicans are discussed at length and major party ideologies are dissected. There is even a sub-section in Chapter 7 labeled “The Republican Party, 1794-1796”. Carried into Chapter 8, beginning with Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, the political disagreements are further evaluated and Republican values are heavily mentioned. Yet perusing the index, the term “Republican” has two references on as many pages prior to the years of the Civil War which has ten references over 18 pages. Feminism has an index entry, as if it was a contemporary term at the time.

All of these ideas were my own observations and loathing while reading this book. But as I read Gordon S. Wood’s, The Purpose of the Past, an anthology of his magazine-length critiques of history books, did his book bridge my suspicions to the impetus behind the textbook and its execution. Frustrated with the political correctness, relativism, and anachronism of Boyer's and company's relating of America's history up to 1877, I began writing this review. It is unfortunate that such disdain for America’s history is evident through the book as it is repackaged for students. Tailoring the events of our past to fit current attempts to discredit what makes us better than other civilizations throughout history, only belittles the advances our culture has attained. show less