Accidents in history : : injuries, fatalities, and social relations / / edited by Roger Cooter, Bill Luckin.

• Superior document: Wellcome Institute series in the history of medicine
• TeilnehmendeR: Cooter, Roger,; Luckin, Bill,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam ;, Atlanta, Georgia : : Rodopi,, [1997]; ©1997
• Year of Publication: 1997
• Language: English
• Series: Wellcome Institute series in the history of medicine.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

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.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Acknowledgements / Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin -- Notes on Contributors / Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin -- Accidents in History: An Introduction / Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin -- Philosophy and the Accident / Robert Campbell -- Accidents: The Remnants of a Modern Classificatory System / Judith Green -- Working Environments: An Ecological Approach to Industrial Health and Safety / Arthur F. McEvoy -- Accidents in the Eighteenth Century / Roy Porter -- The Moment of the Accident: Culture, Militarism and Modernity in Late-Victorian Britain / Roger Cooter -- Civilian Ambulances and Lifesaving Societies: The European Experience, 1870–1914 / John F. Hutchinson -- What are Occupational Diseases? Risk and Risk Management in Industrial Medicine in Germany, c. 1880–1920 / Dietrich Milles -- 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 -- War on the Roads: Traffic Accidents and Social Tension in Britain, 1939–45 / Bill Luckin -- Bibliography / Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin -- Index / Roger Cooter and Bill Luckin.