Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajos

Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajos

This investigative feat tells the shocking, heartbreakingÂ story of uranium miningÂ on the Navajo reservation and its terrible legacy of sickness and government neglect, documenting one of the darker chapters in 20th century American history.

Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed Yellow Dirt, â€œwill break your heart. An enormous achievementâ€”literally, a piece of groundbreaking investigative journalismâ€”illustrates exactly what reporting should do: Show us what weâ€™ve become as a people, and sharpen our vision of who we, the people, ought to becomeâ€ ( The Christian Science Monitor ).

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe of people as the Navajos worked, unprotected, in the uranium mines that fueled the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Long after these mines were abandoned, Navajos in all four corners of the Reservation (which borders Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona) continued grazing their animals on sagebrush flats riddled with uranium that had been blasted from the ground. They built their houses out of chunks of uranium ore, inhaled radioactive dust borne aloft from the waste piles the mining companies had left behind, and their children played in the unsealed mines themselves. Ten years after the mines closed, the cancer rate on the reservation shot up and some babies began to be born with crooked fingers that fused together into claws as they grew. Government scientists filed complaints about the situation with the government, but were told it was a mess too expensive to clean up.

Judy Pasternak exposed this story in a prizewinning Los Angeles Times series. Her work galvanized both a congressman and a famous prosecutor to clean the sites and get reparations for the tribe. Yellow Dirt is her powerful chronicle of both the scandal of neglect and the Navajosâ€™ fight for justice.
Country USA
Brand Free Press
Manufacturer Free Press
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber Illustrated
ReleaseDate 2011-07-05
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781416594833

Country	USA
Brand	Free Press
Manufacturer	Free Press
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	Illustrated
ReleaseDate	2011-07-05
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781416594833

Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajos

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