The Government of Emergency by Collier, Stephen J,Lakoff, Andrew

-About this book

The origins and development of the modern American emergency state From pandemic disease, to the disasters associated with global warming, to cyberattacks, today we face an increasing array of catastrophic threats. It is striking that, despite the diversity of these threats, experts and officials approach them in common terms: as future events that threaten to disrupt the vital, vulnerable systems upon which modern life depends.
The Government of Emergency tells the story of how this now taken-for-granted way of understanding and managing emergencies arose. Amid the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War, an array of experts and officials working in obscure government offices developed a new understanding of the nation as a complex of vital, vulnerable systems. They invented technical and administrative devices to mitigate the nation’s vulnerability, and organized a distinctive form of emergency government that would make it possible to prepare for and manage potentially catastrophic events.
Through these conceptual and technical inventions, Stephen Collier and Andrew Lakoff argue, vulnerability was defined as a particular kind of problem, one that continues to structure the approach of experts, officials, and policymakers to future emergencies.

-CONTENTS

List of Illustrations    ix

Preface: A Vulnerable World    xi

Acknowledgments    xxi

Introduction : The New Normalcy    1

PART I. CRISIS GOVERNMENT IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II

1    Vital Systems    39

2    Emergency Government    84

PART II. DEMOBILIZATION AND REMOBILIZATION

3    Vulnerability    139

4    Preparedness    182

PART III. COLD WAR PLANNING FOR NATIONAL SURVIVAL

5    Enacting Catastrophe    247

6    Survival Resources    291

Epilogue : From Nuclear War to Climate Change    329

Notes    341

Bibliography    399

Index    417

-Caractéristiques

Date de parution :30 novembre 2021

Éditeur ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press

Langue ‏ : ‎ Anglais

NB.de oages ‏ : ‎ 480 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691199280

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691199283

Poids de l’article ‏ : ‎ 703 g

Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 3.18 x 22.23 cm