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Inventing Pollution: Coal, Smoke, and Culture in Britain Since 1800
Contributor(s): Thorsheim, Peter (Author)
ISBN: 0821416812     ISBN-13: 9780821416815
Publisher: Ohio University Press
OUR PRICE:   $32.62  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: February 2006
Qty:
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.
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Europe - Great Britain - General
- Science | Environmental Science (see Also Chemistry - Environmental)
- History | Modern - 19th Century
Dewey: 363.739
LCCN: 2005029428
Series: Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History (Paperback)
Physical Information: 0.79" H x 5.96" W x 9.04" (0.99 lbs) 320 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 19th Century
- Chronological Period - 20th Century
- Chronological Period - 21st Century
- Cultural Region - British Isles
- Topical - Ecology
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

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.