Timescapes of Modernity

by Adam,Barbara

• ISBN13: 9780415162746
• ISBN10: 0415162742
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-03-27
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Timescapes of Modernityfocuses on time to facilitate a deeper understanding of the interactions between environmental, economic, political and socio-cultural concerns. Thinking of the environment as a timescape allows us to see the hazards of the industrial way of life in a new light. Barbara Adam argues that environmental hazards are inescapably tied to the successes of the industrial way of life, global markets and economic growth, large-scale production of food, the speed of transport and communication, the 24 hour society, and even democratic politics. Using examples including the aftermaths of Chernobyl and the treatment of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopath (BSE), Adam dislodges taken-for-granted assumptions about environmental change and provides innovative new strategies to deal with some of the most severe environmental hazards of our time.

Table of Contents

List of plates	vi	(1)
Acknowledgements	vii
Introduction	1	(20)
PART I Habits of the mind: environmental timescapes conceptualised	21	(80)
1 Nature re/constituted and re/conceptualised Mapping the scope of industrial traditions of thought	23	(38)
2 It's all about money, isn't it? Time, all things green and profitable, and moonlighting for the environment	61	(40)
PART II The eye of time on the industrial way of life	101	(130)
3 Square pegs into round holes Democracy and the timescapes of environmental politics	103	(24)
4 Industrial food for thought For everything there is a season and a place	127	(36)
5 Mediated knowledge Of time-lags and amnesia -- reporting on BSE	163	(30)
6 Radiated identities Invisibility, latency, symptoms -- the case of Chernobyl	193	(18)
7 Genies on the loose: what now Aladdin?	211	(20)
References	231	(8)
Index	239