1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910466433503321

Autore

Alexander Anna Rose

Titolo

City on fire : technology, social change, and the hazards of progress in Mexico City, 1860-1910 / / Anna Rose Alexander

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : , : University of Pittsburgh Press, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

0-8229-8146-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (237 p.)

Collana

History of the urban environment

Disciplina

362.10972

Soggetti

Social medicine - Mexico

Social medicine - Mexico - Mexico City - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Modernity and Its Accidents; Chapter One. Fighting Fire, Fighting Fear; Chapter Two. Science of Regulation; Chapter Three. Controlling the Flames-The Fire Brigade; Chapter Four. Engineering Safety; Chapter Five. Inventing Protection; Chapter Six. Insuring Progress; Chapter Seven. Healing the Hazardous City; Conclusion; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index

Sommario/riassunto

"By the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to modernize and industrialize Mexico City had the unintended consequence of exponentially increasing the risk of fire while also breeding a culture of fear. Through an array of archival sources, Anna Rose Alexander argues that fire became a catalyst for social change, as residents mobilized to confront the problem. Advances in engineering and medicine soon fostered the rise of distinct fields of fire-related expertise while conversely, the rise of fire-profiteering industries allowed entrepreneurs to capitalize on crisis. City on Fire demonstrates that both public and private engagements with fire risk highlight the inequalities that characterized Mexican society at the turn of the twentieth century"--

"City on Fire is a chronicle of progress and danger, that integrates urban environmental history with histories of technology, science, and medicine to reveal how Mexico City changed in response to the growing



threat of fire in the urban center"--