Smoke and Mirrors: The Politics and Culture of Air Pollution

by E. Melanie Dupuis (Editor)

Overview

Who gets to breathe clean air? Who benefits from the cheaper products produced with dirty air? The answers, as the contributors to Smoke and Mirrors tell us, are sometimes as gray as the air itself.
From the coal factory chimneys in Manchester in the late nineteenth century to the smog hanging over Los Angeles in the late twentieth century, air pollution has long been one of the greatest threats to our environment. In this important collection of original essays, the leading environmental scientists and social scientists examine the politics of air pollution policies and help us to understand the ways these policies have led to, idiosyncratic, effective, ineffective, and even disastrous choices about what we choose to put into and take out of the air. Offering historical, contemporary and cross-national perspectives, this volume provides a refreshing new approach to understanding how air pollution policies have evolved over time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814721421
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	360
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

E. Melanie DuPuis is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz and author of Nature's Perfect Food: How Milk Became America's Drink.

Table of Contents

IntroductionThe Emergence of Air Pollution as a ProblemPerceptions and E?ects of Late Victorian Air Pollution “The Invisible Evil”: Noxious Vapor and Public Health in Manchester during the Age of Industry Public Perceptions of Smoke Pollution in Victorian Manchester Uplands Downwind: Acidity and Ecological Change in the Southeast Lancashire Moorlands The “Smoky City” between the Wars The Merits of the Precautionary Principle: Controlling Automobile Exhausts in Germany and the United States before Interpreting the London Fog Disaster Localizing Smog: Transgressions in the Therapeutic Landscape Air Pollution Policy TodayA Fine Balance: Automobile Pollution Control Strategies in California Who Owns the Air? Clean Air Act Implementation as a Negotiation of Common Property Rights Air Pollution in Spain: A “Peripheral” Nation Transforms Clearing the Air and Breathing Freely: The Health Politics of Air Pollution and Asthma Invisible People, Invisible Places: Connecting Air Pollution and Pesticide Drift in California Notes from the Field: Air Pollution Engineering as Cultural Experience The Social and Political Construction of Air Pollution: Air Pollution Policies for Mexico CityAfterword Contributors Index 

Editorial Reviews

"[A] fascinating, provocative, pathbreaking book. . . . Air pollution can no longer be understood simply as an issue of economics, science, and engineering, but one that implicates fundamental values and controversies surrounding justice, fairness, and the construction of knowledge."

Gary Bryner

"This collection of richly detailed and pioneering essays will be welcomed as a major contribution . . . providing a broad-ranging and multifaceted overview of the history of society's reaction to and struggle to protect itself from air-borne industrial toxins."

Christine Rosen

"Arguing the importance of the social dimensions of air pollution issues, this collection of 15 original essays addresses a wide range of topics ranging from the perception of the pollution in Victorian England to automotive pollution control in prewar Germany to pesticide drift in modern California. Several essays are provocative. well written, and richly detailed; others are vignettes."

Choice

"Essential reading for social environmental historians, environmental scientists, cultural and social historians, and public policy specialists."

Bill Luckin

"The well-told stories in its diverse chapters provide lessons for today as we continue to struggle to curb urban air pollution and its health effects."

Jonathan Samet

"This excellent collection offers a complex and nuanced introduction to a field that intersects with many others, including studies of social stratification and social movements."

Graig Willse

"This collection of richly detailed and pioneering essays will be welcomed as a major contribution . . . providing a broad-ranging and multifaceted overview of the history of society's reaction to and struggle to protect itself from air-borne industrial toxins.”

-Christine Rosen,author of The Limits of Power

"Essential reading for social environmental historians, environmental scientists, cultural and social historians, and public policy specialists.”

-Bill Luckin,author of Pollution and Control

"This excellent collection offers a complex and nuanced introduction to a field that intersects with many others, including studies of social stratification and social movements."

-Graig Willse,City University of New York

"[A] fascinating, provocative, pathbreaking book. . . . Air pollution can no longer be understood simply as an issue of economics, science, and engineering, but one that implicates fundamental values and controversies surrounding justice, fairness, and the construction of knowledge."

-Gary Bryner,author of From Promises to Performance: Achieving Global Environmental Goals

From the Publisher