Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk [Hardcover]

Rachel Maines (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2005

For much of the industrial era, asbestos was a widely acclaimed benchmark material. During its heyday, it was manufactured into nearly three thousand different products, most of which protected life and property from heat, flame, acids, and electricity. It was used in virtually every industry from hotel keeping to military technology to chemical manufacturing, and was integral to building construction from shacks to skyscrapers in every community across the United States. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, this once popular mineral began a rapid fall from grace as growing attention to the serious health risks associated with it began to overshadow the protections and benefits it provided.

In this thought-provoking and controversial book, Rachel Maines challenges the recent vilification of asbestos by providing a historical perspective on Americans’ changing perceptions about risk. She suggests that the very success of asbestos and other fire-prevention technologies in containing deadly blazes has led to a sort of historical amnesia about the very risks they were supposed to reduce.

Asbestos and Fire is not only the most thoroughly researched and balanced look at the history of asbestos, it is also an important contribution to a larger debate that considers how the risks of technological solutions should be evaluated. As technology offers us ever-increasing opportunities to protect and prevent, Maines urges that learning to accept and effectively address the unintended consequences of technological innovations is a growing part of our collective responsibility.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Against a backdrop in which the mere mention of ''asbestos'' strikes fear, Rachel Maines reminds readers of the valuable role asbestos has played as an insulating and fire-stopping material. She shows the complexity of technological solutions through the example of asbestos: how and why a material developed for the purpose of saving lives was withdrawn from the market when its risks were perceived to outweigh its benefits. Anyone wanting to know about the history of asbestos use will find this book to be an excellent reference.

(Sara E. Wermiel, Ph.D. author of The Fireproof Building: Technology and Public Safety in the Nineteent )

About the Author

Rachel Maines holds a Ph.D. in history of technology from Carnegie Mellon University and is the author of The Technology of Orgasm.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (April 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813535751
• ISBN-13: 978-0813535753
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Mini-Encyclopedia on Asbestos and Fire Retardation: OLA Fire Highlighted, December 6, 2007

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Asbestos and Fire: Technological Tradeoffs and the Body at Risk (Hardcover)

This modest-sized book contains much information on the history, properties, manufacture, and value of asbestos. There are some quaint photos, such as that of an asbestos-based fallout shelter, and that of "giant candle snuffers" used effectively by British firefighters during WWII against German magnesium-thermite incendiary bombs. Statistics are provided on the production of asbestos as well as the hundreds of everyday items that contain asbestos.

The Our Lady of the Angels School Fire (pp. 127-131) is instructive. The lack of sprinklers and the prevalence of wooden-interior trim were bad enough, but so were the combustible ceiling tiles, made as they were out of wheat straw. Maines makes the following strong statement: "If Our Lady of the Angels had had asbestos-containing ceiling panels, flooring, and wall finishes, there would almost certainly have been time for all the building occupants to reach the exits and little or no loss of life...The role of combustible ceiling panels, so significant in the loss of life in the Chicago school fire, had drawn the attention of fire-safety professionals [much earlier]." (p. 131)

Maines puts the cancer and other risks of asbestos in perspective. For instance, she comments: "For parents sending their children in, say 1959, to what were widely known as firetrap schools, the possibility of disease in a relatively small number of adults three decades later...Almost as many persons in that one fire [Our Lady of the Angels School] as in all of the fatal cases of asbestos-related disease reported in publications by that time..." (p. 164)