ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the many ways nuclear technology was viewed and how the wider context of World War II and the Cold War would have helped to shape public experience of nuclear technology. It explores how nuclear technology was developed during a period of intense technological and industrial killing, and how it was linked to an evolution of mass killing structures. Popular culture has long been a medium through which to explore moments of trauma. Popular culture was a useful way for the public to navigate World War II, especially the Holocaust and the bombing of Japan, which were considerable rupture moments in the twentieth century. Technological advancements have typified and dominated the twentieth century as evidenced by the standard ways of defining epochs: machine age, atomic age, and information age. The Holocaust was a rupture event marking unprecedented mechanized mass slaughter and a new level of dehumanization.
