Inventing pollution : coal, smoke, and culture in Britain since 1800 / Peter Thorsheim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thorsheim, Peter.

Series:

Ohio University Press series in ecology and history.

Ohio University Press series in ecology and history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Air--Pollution--Great Britain--History.

Air.

Smoke prevention--Great Britain--History.

Smoke prevention.

Environmentalism--Great Britain--History.

Environmentalism.

Air--Pollution--Social aspects--Great Britain--History.

Coal--Combustion--Health aspects--Great Britain--History.

Coal.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (321 p.)

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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 a

Contents:

Coal, smoke, and history

The miasma era

Pollution redefined

The balance of nature

Pollution and civilization

Degeneration and eugenics

Environmental activism

Regulating pollution

Pollution displacement

Death comes from the air

Smokeless zones

Reinventing pollution.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [257]-291) and index.

ISBN:

0-8214-4210-4

OCLC:

560249578