A Sterile Internationalism? “Atomic War on Insects” at the United Nations, 1960s-70s

Event details

Join us for research seminars hosted by the Department of History with a selection of visiting academics, alongside University of York researchers. All students and staff are very welcome.

Location: V/N/123

A zoom link will be made available for distance learning PhD students on request'

Please contact Dilnoza Duturaeva (dilnoza.duturaeva@york.ac.uk) and Ana Otero-Cleves (anamaria.otero-cleves@york.ac.uk) if you have any questions. You can view the full schedule for the semester here.

Abstract: Historians generally do not regard the nuclear age as a watershed in human-animal relations. This paper argues that, for some scientists, species, and landscapes, it was. In the 1950s US society generated both a wave of Hollywood movies starring fantastical radioactive insects, and a new way to control insects known as the “sterile male technique.” Pioneered by scientists at the US Department of Agriculture, this involved mass-breeding pests and vectors in factories, sterilizing them with gamma radiation, and scattering them from aircraft to overwhelm wild populations. Drawing on new archival research, this paper examines the first efforts by US officials and scientists to institutionalize this technique internationally. High costs, Cold War geopolitical tensions, scientific skepticism, and communication problems all hindered rapid uptake. Nevertheless, by the late 1970s the IAEA and FAO had created a broad network to support an “atomic war on insects,” propelled by several successful pilot projects. This paper emphasizes one in particular: an international effort to control Mediterranean fruit flies in Central America and Perú.

Biography:

Thom Rath is Associate Professor of modern Latin American history at UCL. His research traverses political, social, military and environmental history and aims to highlight Latin America's connections to big global processes. He wrote The Dread Plague and the Cow Killers: The Politics of Animal Disease in Mexico and the World (Cambridge University Press, 2022), which won the inaugural ‘best book’ prize from UK Latin American History (UKLAH), and also co-edits the Journal of Latin American Studies.