Accident Prone: A History of Technology, Psychology, and Misfits of the Machine Age [Hardcover]

John C. Burnham (Author)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (Jun 15 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226081176
ISBN-13: 978-0226081175
Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 3 cm
Shipping Weight: 635 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #506,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

“Accident Prone traces the birth, growth, and decline of an idea: that of accident proneness. John Burnham writes with the confidence, authority, and insight of a preeminent historian. This book is a work of great reason and originality that promises to advance the social history of science, medicine, and technology and will engage anyone interested in how Western societies have understood and grappled with the human costs of modern technology—from home and workplace injuries to the carnage all too common on the world’s highways.”—Jeffrey K. Stine, Smithsonian Institution

(Jeffrey K. Stine, Smithsonian Institution )

“Based on massive research in the literatures of several nations and from a range of disciplines, Accident Prone is a pioneering effort in an area about which little has been written. It will make a major contribution to the growing field of the history of accidents and societal risk perception.”—Joel A. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University

(Joel A. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University )

"Thoughtful. . . . A good academic book for academics."—Times Higher Education

(Times Higher Education )

“Burnham has crafted a fascinating study of the rise and decline of the concept of being accident-prone.”

(Choice )

Product Description

Technology demands uniformity from human beings who encounter it. People encountering technology, however, differ from one another. Thinkers in the early twentieth century, observing the awful consequences of interactions between humans and machines—death by automobiles or dismemberment by factory machinery, for example—developed the idea of accident proneness: the tendency of a particular person to have more accidents than most people. In tracing this concept from its birth to its disappearance at the end of the twentieth century, Accident Prone offers a unique history of technology focused not on innovations but on their unintended consequences.

Here, John C. Burnham shows that as the machine era progressed, the physical and economic impact of accidents coevolved with the rise of the insurance industry and trends in twentieth-century psychology. After World War I, psychologists determined that some people are more accident prone than others. This designation signaled a shift in social strategy toward minimizing accidents by diverting particular people away from dangerous environments. By the 1960s and 1970s, however, the idea of accident proneness gradually declined, and engineers developed new technologies to protect all people, thereby introducing a hidden, but radical, egalitarianism.

Lying at the intersection of the history of technology, the history of medicine and psychology, and environmental history, Accident Prone is an ambitious intellectual analysis of the birth, growth, and decline of an idea that will interest anyone who wishes to understand how Western societies have grappled with the human costs of modern life.

(20091217)

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Amazon.com: 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pioneering the field of the history of accidents, Nov 21 2009

By ROROTOKO - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Accident Prone: A History of Technology, Psychology, and Misfits of the Machine Age (Hardcover)

"Accident Prone" is on the ROROTOKO list of cutting-edge intellectual nonfiction. Professor Burnham's book interview ran here as cover feature on November 18, 2009.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review 5.0 out of 5 stars