Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War. HUGH GUSTERSON. Berkeley: University of California, 1996; 351 pp.
Hugh Gusterson's Nuclear rites: A weapons laboratory at the end of the Cold War, an anthropological study of the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons design laboratory in California, tells fascinating stories relevant to the sociologies of science and technology, social movements, bureaucracy, adult socialization, and legitimization. Drawing extensively from postmodern and orthodox social theories, Gusterson amply demonstrates the power of anthropological investigation and analysis for the interpretation of North American and European society. Although …