Perils of Progress: Environmental Disasters in the Twentieth Century
- ISBN-10
- 0136038026
- ISBN-13
- 9780136038023
- Category
- Disasters
- Pages
- 159
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2011
- Publisher
- Pearson College Division
- Author
- Andrew L. Jenks
Description
"Large-scale technological failures, far from being exceptional, are normal in modern world history. Seen in a world historical rather than narrowly national context, technological disasters happen with astonishing frequency - regardless of political system, cultural context, and level of economic development. In the words of one influential sociologist in disaster studies, large-scale technological disasters are "normal accidents," inevitable products of the interaction of flawed human beings with incredibly complex and dangerous technological and scientific processes. Just like pollution, toxic waste disasters are a result of progress rather than its antithesis. So why are societies so often incapable of seeing this connection?" "This book inserts the often overlooked costs of modern industrial and urban development back into the story of modern world history. It uses four case studies to examine the political, social, and ecological fallout of technological and toxic-waste disasters in the twentieth century: the mass mercury poisoning of Japanese fishermen in Minamata Japan after World War II; the Love Canal chemical dump that devastated the community of Niagara Falls in the United States in the 1970s; a colossal chemical leak in the Indian city of Bhopal in December 1984; and the explosion of a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986. While each of these disasters is associated with a specific year or decade, from the 1950s to the 1980s, the factors that caused these disasters and their aftermath span a much longer time period and encompass the entire twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 1999
- 346 pages
- Paperback
- Zed Books
-
- 1998
- 346 pages
- Paperback
- UNSW Press
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