Histories left behind by the dispossessed
‘Dispatches from Dystopia’ recounts tales of people on the margins of society
By Sid Perkins
Dispatches from Dystopia
Kate Brown
Univ. of Chicago, $25.00
Historians spend lots of time in archives and libraries. But documents often reveal little about people who lived on the margins of society or whose stories are intentionally obscured.
To uncover these people’s stories, historian and self-described “professional disaster tourist” Kate Brown ventures into a variety of wastelands. Dispatches from Dystopia compellingly chronicles people who were or are living on the edge. For instance, while researching the region surrounding Russia’s first plutonium plant, she interviewed people who had once worked inside the remote and secretive facilities. Unsurprisingly, many were tight-lipped. They were far more interested in discussing their myriad medical problems (probably caused by long-term radiation exposure, though the government disputes that) than in talking about the details of the work they had performed.