Suchergebnisse

Acknowledgements -- Introduction: actors of globalization and the wiring of the world -- Atlantic beginnings : the class of 1866 and the formation of "telegraphic" networks -- Come to wire the world : world economy and the battle for Atlantic cable supremacy -- The imagined globe : of the electric union, universal peace and the "great civilizer" -- Weltcommunication : economic intelligence, global news and "social messaging" -- The world's telegraphic knowledge and the professionalization of the telegraph engineer -- The politics of the world's electric nerves : strategic nationalism, cable diplomacy, and imperial control -- Conclusion: the class of 1866 and globalization -- Appendix: the actors' biographies -- Bibliography

Using the incident of the scuttling of the USS Le Baron Russell Briggs, loaded with roughly 22,000 tons of outdated chemical weapons in 1970, this contribution extrapolates how, why, and when in the United States chemical weapons that had been produced as the ultimate answer to the risk of nuclear war became reframed as a risk themselves. The analysis settles on how questions of knowing and not-knowing about potentialities of future events influenced these re-negotiation processes between the myriad actors involved such as the US military, politicians, environmentalists, Anti-Vietnam activists, and the American public. Beyond analyzing historic examples of risk assessment and management, this contribution also demonstrates how we can read the history of the Cold War as a history or risk. I argue that studying the controversy of operation CHASE 13, the sinking of the SS L. B. Briggs, from a risk perspective opens up new avenues into understanding the Cold War from a social and cultural perspective while integrating political and environmental history.

The successful laying of a transatlantic cable in 1866 remade world communications. A message could travel across the ocean in minutes, shrinking the space between continents, cultures, and nations. An eclectic group of engineers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and media visionaries then developed this technology into a telecommunications system that spread a particular vision of civilization—but not everyone wanted to wire the world the same way. Wiring the World is a cultural and social history that explores how the large Anglo-American cable companies won out over alternative visions. Bitter rivalries emerged over telegram prices, visions for world peace, scientific innovation, and the role of the nation-state. Such struggles determined the growth of cable technology, which in turn influenced world history. Filled with fascinating characters and new insights into pivotal events, Wiring the World traces globalization's diverse paths and close ties to business and politics.

"In 1984, a ship carrying 14,000 tons of garbage from Philadelphia was refused entry by the state of New Jersey. This launched a year-and-half voyage of roaming the world's oceans in search for a dumping ground, as the cargo of "the world's most unwanted garbage" was rejected by country after country. The ship illegally dumped 4,000 tons of waste in Haiti under false pretenses, and eventually the waste's entire cargo "disappeared" and was illegally dumped in the ocean. It is a story involving subterfuge in cloaking the identity and movements of the ship, visits to many continents, many smaller countries that pushed back on the US trying to use them as a dumping ground, and eventual criminal convictions for the ship owners. Simone Müller uses this infamous voyage as lens to better understand the structures and dynamics of the international trade in hazardous waste from the 1970s onwards"--

The material and energy flows that characterized the metabolism of preindustrial and industrial societies were organized through complex infrastructures based on interwoven social and natural elements. Analyzing infrastructures from many methodological and thematic perspectives, the present volume adopts an extensive periodization to identify the undeniable changes caused by industrialization and the persistence of pre-existing features and dynamics. The contributions range from the late Middle Ages to the 1990s and deepen historical characteristics of urban metabolism, the study of energy systems and their transitions, and the management and control of water resources. These reveal the strategies societies and states adopted to transform and adapt their surrounding environment in a constant and challenging equilibrium of diverse interests, whose impact over time has had environmental consequences on a global scale