Accidents in History

Injuries, Fatalities and Social Relations
Erscheinungsjahr 1997
ISBN: 978-90-420-0104-6
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 41, 274 Seiten, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 225 mm, Gewicht: 517 g

Reihe: Clio Medica

There is now an extensive literature on the social and environmental consequences of living in "the risk society". Studies of trauma are also increasingly prominent. But scant attention has been paid to perceptions of risk and danger in the past — in particular, to the history of accidents and the meanings of the "accidental". This collection of interdisciplinary essays addresses this lacuna providing a theoretically informed historical sociology of the "accident" and risk. It explores the social and cultural contexts in which ‘acts of God', calamities, catastrophes, disasters, injuries, casualties, and other category of ‘mishaps' were experienced, conceptualized and responded to.
Drawing on the skills of British, European and North American scholars, Accidents in History combines philosophical, sociological and ecological overviews with in-depth historical case-studies. It spans the period from the eighteenth century to the present, probing the epistemological, social and political roots of the "accidental". The authors differentiate between industrial and other forms of injury; trace the origins of the "normalization" of accidents; and analyze the interactions and gendered discrepancies between domestic and non-domestic mishaps. They also investigate the medicalization of sudden injury, and discuss the emergence of new socio-medical and humanitarian discourses around the organization of relief for victims.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Cooter, Roger

Luckin, Bill

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

1. Accidents in History: An Introduction

Roger COOTER and Bill LUCKIN

2. Philosophy and the Accident

Robert CAMPBELL

3. Accidents: The Remnants of a Modern Classificatory System

Judith GREEN



4. Working Environments: An Ecological Approach to Industrial Health and Safety

Arthur F. McEVOY

5. Accidents in the Eighteenth Century

Roy PORTER

6. The Moment of the Accident: Culture, Militarism and Modernity in Late-Victorian Britain

Roger COOTER

7. Civilian Ambulances and Lifesaving Societies: The European Experience, 1870-1914

John F. HUTCHINSON

8. What are Occupational Diseases? Risk and Risk Manage-ment in Industrial Medicine in Germany

Dietrich MILLES

9. Housewives as Home Safety Managers: The Changing Perception of the Home as a Place of Hazard and Risk, 1870-1940

Joel A. TARR and Mark TEBEAU

10. War on the Roads: Traffic Accidents and Social Tension in Britain, 1939-45

Bill LUCKIN

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Roger Cooter is University Reader at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, in the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, at the University of Manchester. He has published widely in the social history of science and medicine. The author of The cultural Meaning of Popular Science (1984); Phrenology in the British Isles (1989); and Surgery and Society in Peace and War (1993), he has also edited Studies in the History of Alternative medicine (1988) and In the Name of the Child: Health and Welfare, 1880-1940 (1991).



Bill Luckin is Professor in Urban and Cultural Studies at the Bolton Institute, and an Associate of the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester. The author of Pollution and Control: A Social History of the Thames in the Nineteenth Century (1986), and Questions of Power: Electricity and environment in Inter-war Britain (1990), he has also published on quantitative aspects of epidemics, and on various aspects of environmental, social, cultural and urban history.