Title Inventing pollution : coal, smoke, and culture in Britain since 1800 / Peter Thorsheim

Published Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, ©2006

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xii, 307 pages) : illustrations Series Ohio University Press series in ecology and history Ohio University Press series in ecology and history. Contents Coal, smoke, and history -- The miasma era -- Pollution redefined -- The balance of nature -- Pollution and civilization -- Degeneration and eugenics -- Environmental activism -- Regulating pollution -- Pollution displacement -- Death comes from the air -- Smokeless zones -- Reinventing pollution Summary Annotation Britain's supremacy in the nineteenth century depended in large part on its vast deposits of coal. This coal not only powered steam engines in factories, ships, and railway locomotives but also warmed homes and cooked food. As coal consumption skyrocketed, the air in Britain's cities and towns became filled with ever-greater and denser clouds of smoke. In this far-reaching study, Peter Thorsheim explains that, for much of the nineteenth century, few people in Britain even considered coal smoke to be pollution. To them, pollution meant miasma: invisible gases generated by decomposing plant and animal matter. Far from viewing coal smoke as pollution, most people considered smoke to be a valuable disinfectant, for its carbon and sulfur were thought capable of rendering miasma harmless. Inventing Pollution examines the radically new understanding of pollution that emerged in the late nineteenth century, one that centered not on organic decay but on coal combustion. This change, as Peter Thorsheim argues, gave birth to the smoke-abatement movement and to new ways of thinking about the relationships among humanity, technology, and the environment Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-291) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL English Print version record digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject Air -- Pollution -- Great Britain -- History Smoke prevention -- Great Britain -- History Environmentalism -- Great Britain -- History Air -- Pollution -- Social aspects -- Great Britain -- History Coal -- Combustion -- Health aspects -- Great Britain -- History BUSINESS & ECONOMICS -- Infrastructure. SOCIAL SCIENCE -- General. HISTORY -- General. Air -- Pollution Air -- Pollution -- Social aspects Coal -- Combustion -- Health aspects Environmentalism Smoke prevention Luchtverontreiniging. Great Britain Verenigd Koninkrijk van Groot-Brittannië en Noord-Ierland. Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2005029428 ISBN 9780821442104 0821442104 0821416804 9780821416808

  Permalink