THE RADIOACTIVE BOY SCOUT : THE TRUE STORY OF A BOY AND HIS BACKYARD NUCLEAR REACTOR

Book ID/图书代码： 08880004B01013

English Summary/英文概要： On June 26, 1995 the people of Golf Manor, Michigan returned from work to find a federal EPA crew dismantling a potting shed in Patty Hahn’s back yard. In subsequent days, the crew, wearing protective suits, carted away the refuse in sealed barrels emblazoned with radiation symbols. The EPA workers refused to disclose what was happening, only offering vague reassurance that everything was ok. Ken Silverstein shows that things in Golf Manor were not, in fact, ok. David Hahn, a 17-year-old aspiring Eagle Scout, had constructed the rudiments of a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard and had contaminated himself and the immediate area with potentially deadly radioactive material. In his brief, briskly-paced account of the events, Silverstein weaves together science, history, and testimony from David and his family in a tale both frightening and tragic. 〈br> For David to get so far, Silverstein shows, he had to be the victim of carelessness and neglect at all levels of society. David Hahn’s parents were divorced, and David used the separate households to conceal the magnitude of his work. His school teachers paid little heed when David, nicknamed Glow Boy by fellow students, suggested he was collecting radioactive substances. Most alarmingly, corporations and government agencies blithely supplied David with the materials and information he needed to expand his work to dangerous levels. Interspersed with his account of David, Silverstein exposes the culture of deceit surrounding the history of nuclear power, a culture that easily seduced an aspiring young scientist. David was left with little in the way of mentorship other than such one-sided testaments to the benefits of science as his trusted Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. The book, which grew out of Silverstein’s 1998 story in Harper’s Magazine reads like a suspense novel blended with breezy accounts of America’s history with the atom. It is, in some ways, a coda for the nuclear age. In his final pages, Silverstein shows that power production from nuclear reactors has slowly ebbed over the last decades, breeder reactors world-wide have been shut down, and public apprehension has finally out-stripped naïve scientific exuberance for atomic energy. But is the danger truly receding? Surprisingly, The Radioactive Boy Scout does not address any changes in security that have evolved from David’s incident. In fact, Silverstein hints that David himself may still be dabbling with radioactive materials. In the post 9/11 era, the prospect is even more frightening.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 底特律郊区有一个爱好科学的男孩，常在自己的地下室里做各种科学实验。有一次，他想为童子军制作原子能徽章，就不顾一切地要在后院里建造一个核反应器。他假称是一个物理学家，向政府有关机构和专家获取了核反应器的专门知识，依照一本旧教科书上的蓝图，利用旧货市场和垃圾场里找来的一些材料，真的拼成了一个能产生放射性物质的反应器。这一成功给镇上的4万名居民带来了环境灾难，最终被拆除。

Awards/获奖情况：

About the Author/作者介绍： Ken Silverstein is an investigative reporter for the Washington, D.C.bureau of the Los Angeles Times. A former contributing editor of Harper’s, in which magazine a portion of this story first appeared, Silverstein has written for Mother Jones. The Nation,and The American Prospect, among others. He lives in Washington. D.C. Ken Silverstein做过“哈泼斯杂志”的编辑，现为“洛杉矶时报”的调查记者。

Format:HARDCOVER

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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