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Risk
Negotiating Safety in American Society
How have Americans confronted, managed, and even enjoyed the risks of daily life?
Winner of the Ralph Gomory Prize of the Business History Conference
"Risk" is a capacious term used to describe the uncertainties that arise from physical, financial, political, and social activities. Practically everything we do carries some level of risk—threats to our bodies, property, and animals. How do we determine when the risk is too high? In considering this question, Arwen P. Mohun offers a thought-provoking study of danger and how people have managed it from pre-industrial and industrial America up until today.
Mohun outlines a vernacular risk culture in early America, one based on ordinary experience and common sense. The rise of factories and machinery eventually led to shocking accidents, which, she explains, risk-management experts and the "gospel of safety" sought to counter. Finally, she examines the simultaneous blossoming of risk-taking as fun and the aggressive regulations that follow from the consumer-products-safety movement.
Risk and society, a rapidly growing area of historical research, interests sociologists, psychologists, and other social scientists. Americans have learned to tame risk in both the workplace and the home. Yet many of us still like amusement park rides that scare the devil out of us; they dare us to take risks.
About the Author
Arwen P. Mohun is a professor of history at the University of Delaware. She is author of Steam Laundries: Gender, Technology, and Work in the United States and Great Britain, 1880–1940 and coeditor of Gender and Technology: A Reader, both published by Johns Hopkins.
Reviews
"A thought-provoking study of danger and how people have managed it in American from preindustrial and industrial times up until today."
"Risk is a fascinating exploration of culture, history, and mankind's tenuous grasp on saving itself from accidents."
"Writing in a lucid style, Mohun gives an impressive overview of the American transition from vernacular to expert-centered or state-driven risk regimes."
"Mohun’s claims are persuasively argued, well documented, rooted in the everyday experiences of knowledgeable historical contemporaries, and animated by the broad political, social, and cultural changes that define modernization."
"Mohun's comprehensive approach registers a major contribution that takes safety history a big step forward."
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From 17 | |
Hardback | |
February 26, 2013 | |
9781421407906 | |
English | |
344 | |
130630 | |
21 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
1.08 Inches (US) | |
1.35 Pounds (US) | |
$60.00 USD, £50.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Electronic book text | |
February 26, 2013 | |
9781421408255 | |
9781421407906 | |
English | |
344 | |
130630 | |
21 | |
9.00 Inches (US) | |
6.00 Inches (US) | |
$60.00 USD, £50.00 GBP | |
v2.1 Reference | |
Other Titles by Arwen P. Mohun
Gender and Technology
Steam Laundries
Other Titles in SCIENCE / History
Capturing Glaciers
Do I Know You?
In the Land of Marvels
Other Titles in History of science
Capturing Glaciers
Do I Know You?
In the Land of Marvels