Book

The smoke of London : energy and environment in the early modern city

Cavert, William M., author

Overview

\"The Smoke of London uncovers the origins of urban air pollution, two centuries before the industrial revolution. By 1600, London was a fossil-fueled city, its high-sulfur coal a basic necessity for the poor and a source of cheap energy for its growing manufacturing sector. The resulting smoke was found ugly and dangerous throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leading to challenges in court, suppression by the crown, doctors' attempts to understand the nature of good air, increasing suburbanization, and changing representations of urban life in poetry and on the London stage. Neither a celebratory account of proto-environmentalism nor a declensionist narrative of degradation, The Smoke of London recovers the seriousness of pre-modern environmental concerns even as it explains their limits and failures. Ultimately, Londoners learned to live with their dirty air, an accommodation that reframes the modern process of urbanization and industrial pollution, both in Britain and beyond\"-- Provided by publisher.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Smoke Environmental aspects England London History. / Air Pollution England London History. / Air Pollution Social aspects England London History. / Coal Environmental aspects United States.
• ISBN: 9781107073005, 1107073006, 9781107421318, 1107421314

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
TD884.C37 2016	1	BOOK	AUTOSTORE