Accidents in History: Injuries, Fatalities and Social Relations (Series: The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine. Clio Medica 41)

COOTER, ROGER/Luckin, Bill

ISBN 10: 9042001046 / ISBN 13: 9789042001046

Published by Amsterdam, Rodopi. 1997, 1997

273 p. Cloth with dustjacket, in good condition. Seller Inventory # 71101

Synopsis:

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.

About the Author: 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.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Accidents in History: Injuries, Fatalities ...
Publisher: Amsterdam, Rodopi. 1997
Publication Date: 1997
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included