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Book Cover
E-book
Author Zwierlein, Cornel, author

Title Prometheus tamed : fire, security, and modernities, 1400 to 1900 / Cornel Zwierlein
Published Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2021
©2021

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Description 1 online resource
Series Library of economic history, 18773206 ; volume 13
Library of economic history ; v. 13.
Summary "Over 8,200 large city fires broke out between 1000 and 1939 CE in Central Europe. Prometheus Tamed inquires into the long-term history of that fire ecology, its local and regional frequencies, its relationship to climate history. It asks for the visual and narrative representation of that threat in every-day life. Institutional forms of fire insurance emerged in the form of private joint stock companies (the British model, starting in 1681) or in the form of cameralist fire insurances (the German model, starting in 1676). They contributed to shape and change society, transforming old communities of charitable solidarity into risk communities, finally supplemented by networks of cosmopolite aid. After 1830, insurance agencies expanded tremendously quickly all over the globe: Cultural clashes of Western and native perceptions of fire risk and of what is insurance can be studied as part of a critical archaeology of world risk society and the plurality of modernities"-- Provided by publisher
Notes Includes index
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on February 04, 2021)
Subject Fire ecology.
Wildfires -- Environmental aspects
Fire ecology
Wildfires -- Environmental aspects
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2020048753
ISBN 9789004431225
9004431225