41.1 - Risk & Social History

HSR Vol. 41 (2016) No. 1: Special Issue: Risk & Social History
Peter Itzen & Simone M. Müller (Eds.): Risk as an Analytical Category: Selected Studies in the Social History of the Twentieth Century
Risks, their construction and mitigation are characteristic for the twentieth century. Enhanced science and technology carried with them not only new opportunities and possibilities, but also created new risks. The contributions of this HSR Special Issue demonstrate that a history of risk can contribute substantially to our understanding of modern societies in general and to a social history of the twentieth century specifically. Risks, risk perceptions and attempts to mitigate them or their effects, are influential in many social fields during the twentieth century. These range from the reaction to social injustice and attempts to avert the threat of poverty, to the debate on health hazards like HIV or the search for solutions to environmental threats. The articles show that a history of risk can deepen our understanding of these various fields of historical research. Sometimes they may even challenge established readings and make clear that our conventional historical chronologies may be flawed, for instance because they ignore important societal developments that a history of risk can illuminate. Everyday risks often have a much more intense effect on individual lives than do great political debates. How a society reads these risks and how it reacts to them is therefore a legitimate and highly important research topic in its own right. Research on risks sheds light on the different processes of learning and adaption that led to the establishment of new risk regimes and helps us understand why and to which degree societies were resilient against the challenge of risks and under which circumstances an adaption seemed necessary.
Furthermore this HSR contains a Mixed Issue with two articles.
Special Issue – Risk as an Analytical Category: Selected Studies in the Social History of the Twentieth Century
- Peter Itzen & Simone M. Müller: Risk as a Category of Analysis for a Social History of the Twentieth Century: An Introduction. [Abstract]
- Arwen P. Mohun: Constructing the History of Risk. Foundations, Tools, and Reasons Why. [Abstract]
- Stefan Kaufmann & Ricky Wichum: Risk and Security: Diagnosis of the Present in the Context of (Post-)Modern Insecurities. [Abstract]
- Malte Thießen: Risk as a Resource: On the Interplay between Risks, Vaccinations and Welfare States in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Germany. [Abstract]
- Jörg Arnold: “The Death of Sympathy.” Coal Mining, Workplace Hazards, and the Politics of Risk in Britain, ca. 1970-1990. [Abstract]
- Sebastian Haus: Risky Sex – Risky Language. HIV/AIDS and the West German Gay Scene in the 1980s. [Abstract]
- Kai Nowak: Teaching Self-Control. Road Safety and Traffic Education in Postwar Germany. [Abstract]
- Peter Itzen: Who is Responsible in Winter? Traffic Accidents, the Fight against Hazardous Weather and the Role of Law in a History of Risks. [Abstract]
- Meike Haunschild: Freedom versus Security. Debates on Social Risks in Western Germany in the 1950s. [Abstract]
- Sarah Haßdenteufel: Covering Social Risks. Poverty Debate and Anti-Poverty Policy in France in the 1980s. [Abstract]
- Felix Krämer: Hazards of Being a Male Breadwinner: Deadbeat Dads in the United States of the 1980s. [Abstract]
- Nicolai Hannig: The Checkered Rise of Resilience. Anticipating Risks of Nature in Switzerland and Germany since 1800. [Abstract]
- Simone M. Müller: “Cut Holes and Sink ‘em”: Chemical Weapons Disposal and Cold War History as a History of Risk. [Abstract]