One day in the early 1970s, Robert Adams (born 1937) and his wife saw from their home a column of smoke rise above the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, near Denver, Colorado. For an hour they watched the plume grow and experienced a sense of helplessness before what appeared to be a nuclear accident in progress. Ultimately it was announced that the fire was burning outside the plant, but Adams decided to try to picture what stood to be lost in a nuclear catastrophe. He photographed in Denver and its suburbs; the individuals shown were within hazardous proximity to the Rocky Flats Plant.

The new Steidl edition of Our Lives and Our Children presents an expanded sequence that retains the potent compactness of the first edition.