Government of Emergency - Vital Systems, Expertise, and the Politics of Security

The origins and development of the modern American emergency stateFrom 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.

Product details

• Authors: Stephen J Collier, Stephen J Lakoff Collier, Stephen J. Collier, Stephen J. Lakoff Collier, Collier Stephen J., Andrew Lakoff, Andrew Collier Lakoff, Lakoff Andrew
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.11.2021
• EAN: 9780691199283
• ISBN: 978-0-691-19928-3
• No. of pages: 480
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 240 mm x 30 mm
• Series: Princeton Studies in Culture and Technology
• Subjects: Education and learning > Teaching preparation > Vocational needs; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; POLITICAL SCIENCE / Security (National & International), Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SCIENCE / History, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Disasters & Disaster Relief, Anthropology, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Social Policy, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / General, History of Science, Social impact of disasters, Central / national / federal government policies, Central government policies, Social impact of disasters / accidents (natural or man-made)