Catastrophic Technologies and Cold War Fears

During the Cold War a range of liberal and left intellectuals looked at the new technologies born of the Second World War and its aftermath with mounting concern and alarm. Figures like Herbert Marcuse and Theodore Adorno of the Frankfurt School and the Philosopher Martin Heidegger reacted to the destructive power of the atomic bomb and the cultural power of the mass media with fear and pessimism and believed that the world was sleepwalking into catastrophe. In this episode of the Explaining History podcast we speak with Dr Caroline Ashworth of Oxford University about her new book Catastrophic Technology in Cold War Political Thought.

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