part I. Risks from nature. 1. Fire is everybody's problem ; 2. The uncertainties of disease ; 3. Doing something about the weather ; 4. Animal risk for a modern age -- part II. Industrializing risk. 5. Railroads, or, why risk in a system is different ; 6. The professionalization of safety ; 7. The safety-first movement -- part III. Risk in a consumer society. 8. Negotiating automobile risk ; 9. What's a gun good for? ; 10. Risk as entertainment : amusement parks ; 11. Consumer product safety -- Conclusion
Summary:
""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. So 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 preindustrial and industrial America up until today. Mohun outlines a vernacular risk culture in early America, one based on ordinary experienced 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."--Jacket.
