J. Samuel Walker 
Permissible Dose 
A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century

How much radiation is too much? J. Samuel Walker examines the evolution, over more than a hundred years, of radiation protection standards and efforts to ensure radiation safety for nuclear workers and for the general public. The risks of radiation—caused by fallout from nuclear bomb testing, exposure from medical or manufacturing procedures, effluents from nuclear power, or radioactivity from other sources—have aroused more sustained controversy and public fear than any other comparable industrial or environmental hazard. Walker clarifies the entire radiation debate, showing that permissible dose levels are a key to the principles and practices that have prevailed in the field of radiation protection since the 1930s, and to their highly charged political and scientific history as well.

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LIST OF FIGURES 

PREFACE 


1. The Discovery of Radiation and Its Hazards 

2. The Debate over Nuclear Power and Radiation 

3. The Role of Federal Agencies in Radiation Protection 

4. New Controversies, New Standards 

5. The Ambiguities of Radiation Effects 


ESSAY ON SOURCES 

INDEX 

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J. Samuel Walker is the historian of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. His previous books include Containing the Atom (California, 1992) and (with George T.Mazuzan) Controlling the Atom (California, 1984).