Mobilising Modernity

Mobilising Modernity PDF Author: Ian Welsh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134945809
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
During the nuclear heyday of the post-war years advocates of atomic power promised cheap electricity and a prosperous future. From the present, however, this promise seems tarnished by accidents, leaks and a lack of public confidence. Mobilising Modernity traces this journey from confidence in technology to the anxieties of the Risk Society questioning a number of conventional wisdoms en route. Paying close attention to social, political and policy aspects throughout, this book considers: * the nuclear moment from global collaborative project at Los Alamos to fragmented, bitterly competing projects * the 'atomic science movement's' use of symbolic resources to win national ascendancy * the implications of secrecy and the establishment of quasi-commercial organisations within the nuclear industry. This fascinating study also argues for the ongoing importance of the non-violent direct action groups that flourished during the 1970s, showing their continuing influence on today's new social movements. Welsh concludes by considering the implications of this historically based account for contemporary issues of risk and trust on current policy-making.

Mobilising Modernity

Mobilising Modernity PDF Author: Ian Welsh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134945809
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300

Get Book Here

Book Description
During the nuclear heyday of the post-war years advocates of atomic power promised cheap electricity and a prosperous future. From the present, however, this promise seems tarnished by accidents, leaks and a lack of public confidence. Mobilising Modernity traces this journey from confidence in technology to the anxieties of the Risk Society questioning a number of conventional wisdoms en route. Paying close attention to social, political and policy aspects throughout, this book considers: * the nuclear moment from global collaborative project at Los Alamos to fragmented, bitterly competing projects * the 'atomic science movement's' use of symbolic resources to win national ascendancy * the implications of secrecy and the establishment of quasi-commercial organisations within the nuclear industry. This fascinating study also argues for the ongoing importance of the non-violent direct action groups that flourished during the 1970s, showing their continuing influence on today's new social movements. Welsh concludes by considering the implications of this historically based account for contemporary issues of risk and trust on current policy-making.

Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer PDF Author: Charles Thorpe
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226798461
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
"Oppenheimer reveals its subject as both an expert working on behalf of the state and an intellectual with broad cultural and moral authority. Oppenheimer played a crucial role not only in defining the task of the physicist as nuclear weaponeer, but also in expounding the wider cultural meanings and moral responsibilities associated with that task. The controversy over the hydrogen bomb and Oppenheimer's public fall from grace in the 1954 loyalty-security hearings, Thorpe argues, revealed fundamental tensions at the heart of the modern technoscientific state, raising questions about the responsibility scientists should take for the technologies of death they produce." "Oppenheimer maps out changes in the roles of scientists and intellectuals in twentieth-century America, ultimately revealing transformations in Oppenheimer's persona that coincided with changing attitudes toward science in society."--BOOK JACKET.

 PDF Author: Christopher Rootes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199252076
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Based upon an analysis of the protest events reported in one quality newspaper in each of eight countries during the ten years 1988 to 1997, this is the first systematically comparative study of environmental protest in a representative cross-section of EU member states. It breaks entirely new ground in the study of environmental politics in Europe and is a major contribution to the study of protest events.

Imaginaries of Modernity

Imaginaries of Modernity PDF Author: John Rundell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317118723
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
This book offers a new perspective on the issue of modernity through a series of interconnected essays. Drawing centrally on the works of Castoriadis, Luhmann, Heller and Lefort, and in critical discussion with Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, Adorno, Habermas and Taylor, the author argues that modernity is not only a unique historical creation but also a multiple one. With a focus on five broad themes - the problem of understanding of modernity after the decline of grand narratives; the complexity of the modern condition; politics, especially with reference to freedom and totalitarian regimes; the variety and density of modern life; and the centrality of a concept of culture to social and critical theory - John Rundell advances the view that modernity is not the outcome of an evolutionary process or historical development, but is unique and indeterminate, as are the constitutive dimensions that can be identified as 'modern'. There are, then, different modernities. A rigorous engagement with a range of prominent and contemporary social theorists, Imaginaries of Modernity casts new light on the significance of understanding the multidimensional character of modernity and the plurality of its forms beyond the conventional paradigms associated with only the West. As such, it will appeal to scholars of social theory, critical theory, sociology and philosophy concerned with questions of culture, politics and modernity.

Erich Fromm's Critical Theory

Erich Fromm's Critical Theory PDF Author: Kieran Durkin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350087009
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Interest in Fromm is increasing: as a prominent Marxist, sociologist, psychoanalytic theorist, and public intellectual, the unique normative-humanist thrust of his writings provides a crucial critical reference point for those seeking to understand and transcend the societal pathologies of our age. The essays in this volume retrieve, revive, and expand upon Fromm's central insights and contributions. They offer a critical theory of culture, the self, psychology and society that goes beyond what is typical of the narrower concerns of the fragmented and isolated disciplines of today, demonstrating the pan-disciplinary potential of Fromm's work. But this book does not simply reassert Fromm's ideas and rehash his theories, but rather reconstructs them to bring them into meaningful dialogue with contemporary ideas and cultural, political and economic developments. Providing new approaches to Fromm's ideas and work brings them up-to-date with contemporary problems and debates in theory and society and helps us understand the challenges of our times.

Knowledge Production in Mao-Era China

Knowledge Production in Mao-Era China PDF Author: Rui Kunze
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498584624
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
This book traces and analyzes the transformation of the public discourse of science and technology in Mao-era China. Based on extensive primary sources such as science dissemination materials and technical handbooks, as well as mass media products of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution periods, this book delineates the emergence of a pragmatic approach to knowledge in society. To achieve the goal of fast modernization with limited financial, human, and material resources, the party-state accommodated Western and local, "modern" and "traditional" knowledges in the fields of agricultural mechanization, steel production and Chinese veterinary medicine. The case studies demonstrate that scientific knowledge production in the Mao-era included various social groups and was entangled with political and cultural issues. This reveals and explains the continuity of scientific thinking across the historical divides of 1949 and 1978, which has hitherto been underestimated.

Routledge Handbook of Science, Technology, and Society

Routledge Handbook of Science, Technology, and Society PDF Author: Daniel Lee Kleinman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136237151
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 689

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Book Description
Over the last decade or so, the field of science and technology studies (STS) has become an intellectually dynamic interdisciplinary arena. Concepts, methods, and theoretical perspectives are being drawn both from long-established and relatively young disciplines. From its origins in philosophical and political debates about the creation and use of scientific knowledge, STS has become a wide and deep space for the consideration of the place of science and technology in the world, past and present. The Routledge Handbook of Science, Technology and Society seeks to capture the dynamism and breadth of the field by presenting work that pushes the reader to think about science and technology and their intersections with social life in new ways. The interdisciplinary contributions by international experts in this handbook are organized around six topic areas: embodiment consuming technoscience digitization environments science as work rules and standards This volume highlights a range of theoretical and empirical approaches to some of the persistent – and new – questions in the field. It will be useful for students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities, including in science and technology studies, history, geography, critical race studies, sociology, communications, women’s and gender studies, anthropology, and political science.

Weapon of Choice

Weapon of Choice PDF Author: Matthew Ford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190911786
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This book examines Western military technological innovation through the lens of developments in small arms during the twentieth century. These weapons have existed for centuries, appear to have matured only incrementally and might seem unlikely technologies for investigating the trajectory of military-technical change. Their relative simplicity, however, makes it easy to use them to map patterns of innovation within the military-industrial complex. Advanced technologies may have captured the military imagination, offering the possibility of clean and decisive outcomes, but it is the low technologies of the infantryman that can help us develop an appreciation for the dynamics of military-technical change. Tracing the path of innovation from battlefield to back office, and from industry to alliance partner, Ford develops insights into the way that small arms are socially constructed. He thereby exposes the mechanics of power across the military-industrial complex. This in turn reveals that shifting power relations between soldiers and scientists, bureaucrats and engineers, have allowed the private sector to exploit infantry status anxiety and shape soldier weapon preferences. Ford's analysis allows us to draw wider conclusions about how military innovation works and what social factors frame Western military purchasing policy, from small arms to more sophisticated and expensive weapons.

The Police and the Expansion of Public Order Law in Britain, 1829-2014

The Police and the Expansion of Public Order Law in Britain, 1829-2014 PDF Author: Iain Channing
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136179690
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Incidences of public disorder, and the manner in which they have been suppressed, have repeatedly ignited debate on the role of policing, the effectiveness of current legislation and the implications for human rights and civil liberties. These same issues have reverberated throughout British history, and have frequently resulted in the enactment of new legislation that reactively aimed to counter the specific concern of that era. This book offers a detailed analysis of the expansion of public order law in the context of the historical and political developments in British society. The correlation of key historical events and the enactment of consequent legislation is a key theme that resonates throughout the book, and demonstrates the expanding influence of the law on public assemblies and protest, which has continued to criminalise and prohibit certain social behaviours. Crucial movements in Britain’s social and political history who have all engaged in, or have provoked public disorder, are examined in the book. Other incidents of riot and disorder, such as the Featherstone Riot (1893), the Battle of Cable Street (1936), the Inner City Riots (1980s) and the UK riots (2011) are also covered. By positioning legal developments within their historical context, the book demonstrates the ebb and flow between the prominence of the competing demands of the liberties of free expression and assembly on the one hand and the protection of the general public and property on the other. This book is essential reading for academics and students in the fields of criminology, history and law.

Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society

Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society PDF Author: Constance Lever-Tracy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135998493
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 671

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Book Description
As the time-scales of natural change accelerate and converge with those of society, Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society takes the reader into largely uncharted territory in its exploration of anthropogenic climate change. Current material is used to highlight the global impact of this issue, and the necessity for multidisciplinary and global social science research and teaching to address the problem. The book is multidisciplinary and worldwide in scope, with contributors spanning specialisms including agro-forestry, economics, environmentalism, ethics, human geography, international relations, law, politics, psychology, sociology and theology. Their global knowledge is reflected in the content of the text, which encompasses chapters on American, European and Chinese policies, case studies of responses to disasters and of the new technological and lifestyle alternatives that are being adopted, and the negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen conference alongside a preface assessing its outcomes. Starting with an initial analysis by a leading climatologist, key issues discussed in the text include recent findings of natural scientists, social causation and vulnerability, media and public recognition or scepticism, and the merits and difficulties of actions seeking to mitigate and adapt. This accessible volume utilizes a wealth of case studies, explains technical terms and minimises the use of acronyms associated with the subject, making it an essential text for advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students and researchers in the social sciences.