1960s

The spoils of nuclear war

A surreal-yet-serious study of post-nuclear economics from 1965

Jun 11 • Alex Wellerstein

A strange, unloved apocalypse

Philip K. Dick's "Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb" (1965)

Jun 4 • Alex Wellerstein

"To build a shelter was to admit to the kind of age we lived in..."

The moral dilemmas explored by The Twilight Zone's "The Shelter" (1961)

May 21 • Alex Wellerstein

Will the survivors envy the dead?

Tracing the origins of a popular trope about nuclear war

Dec 19, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

Working at Cold War Los Alamos

A conversation with the chemist Cheryl Rofer about her over thirty year career at Los Alamos

Dec 12, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

"I have sought to slaughter as few civilians as possible."

The rabid, apocalyptic Beat poetry that is "Mission with LeMay"

Oct 16, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

Inventing the Doomsday Machine

It is not a thing a sane man would do

Sep 26, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

Critical mastery

The sublime art of nuclear posters

Sep 12, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

A brief history of Preppers, part 2

Jun 13, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

Nuclear families

The imagery of the "family" in fallout shelter pamphlets, 1959-1961

Apr 11, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

Civil Defense and Preppers

A brief history of Preppers, part 1

Apr 4, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

The first portable digital nuclear weapons effects computer

The Weapons Effects Display System (WEDS), Part II

Mar 28, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

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