cover image Under the Radar: Cancer and the Cold War

Under the Radar: Cancer and the Cold War

Ellen Leopold. Rutgers University Press, $25.95 (284pp) ISBN 978-0-8135-4404-5

Leopold, Ellen. Under the Radar: Cancer and the Cold War. Rutgers Univ. (Critical Issues in Health & Medicine). Oct. 2008. c.312p. photogs. index. ISBN 978-0-8135-4404-5. $25.95. MED~Verdict: Leopold's single-minded focus on the impact of the American Cold War weakens her arguments. She overlooks helpful historical context and international comparisons. Radiation therapy for cancer, in fact, has been used for more than a century, while the Oxford English Dictionary cites cancer as a political metaphor as early as 1597. Nevertheless, the book offers much of interest, and it is recommended to academic libraries interested in medical history or women's studies. Background: Health journalist Leopold follows up her previous book, A Darker Ribbon: Breast Cancer, Women, and Their Doctors in the Twentieth Century, with this cultural history of cancer from the post-World War II period to the present. Using the impact of the Cold War in the United States as her overarching theme, she examines metaphors of cancer in political rhetoric and points to the emergence of radiation therapies as a by-product of Manhattan Project research on nuclear weapons. Leopold speculates on the post-World War II increase of industrial and medical radiation and environmental pollution as primary triggers for many cancers and discounts contemporary emphasis on smoking, alcohol, or poor nutrition.-Kathy Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib., FL.