This open access edited collection brings together established and new perspectives on Cold War civil defence in Western Europe within a common analytical framework that also facilitates comparative and transnational dimensions. The current interest in creating disaster-resilient societies demands new histories of civil defence. Historical contextualization is essential in order to understand what is at stake in preparing, devising, and implementing forms of preparedness, protection, and security that are specifically targeted at societies and citizens. Applying the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to civil defence history, the chapters of this volume cover a range of new themes, from technology and materiality to media, memory, and everyday experience. The book underlines the social embeddedness of civil defence by detailing how it both prompted new forms of social interaction and reflected norms and visions of the ‘good society’ in an age where nuclear technology seemed to hold the key to both doom and salvation.
Author(s): Marie Cronqvist, Rosanna Farbøl, Casper Sylvest
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 265
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations
List of Figures
1 Introduction: New Paths in Civil Defence History
Historiography, Trends and Aims
Sociotechnical Imaginaries: Introducing and Exploring a Concept
Applying and Adjusting the Concept
Outline of the Book
References
2 Order on Their Home Fronts: Imagining War and Social Control in 1950s NATO
Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Concepts of War
Imagining War and Civil Defence in 1950s NATO
Bringing in Science
Control
Conclusion
References
3 The Imagined Disastrous: West German Civil Defence Between War Preparation and Emergency Management 1950–1990
Disaster as Rhetoric, War as Reality: Early West German Civil Defence 1950–1968
From the Sensationalist to the Pragmatic: Later West German Civil Defence
The Emergence of All-Hazards Disaster Medicine in West Germany 1956–1989
Conclusion
References
4 Normalising Nuclear War: Narrative Scenarios, Imaginative Geographies and Sites of Leisure in 1950s Britain
Civil Defence in the UK
Historiography: Civil Defence and Sociotechnical Imaginaries
‘Narrative Scenarios’ of Nuclear Attack: Normalising Imaginary War
Civic Engagement and Sites of Leisure
Imaginative Geographies
Conclusion
References
5 Embedding Preparedness, Assigning Responsibility: The Role of Film in Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Civil Defence
Sociotechnical imaginaries and visual history: Civil defence films as practices of embedding
Early films (c. 1949–1954)
Later films (c. 1954–1965)
Conclusion
References
6 ‘The World is Her Home’: The Role of Women Volunteers in Dutch Civil Defence in the 1950s and 1960s
Rise and Decline of the Bescherming Bevolking
Dutch Women in the Cold War: Social Position, Ideals and Voluntary Work
Women volunteers and the BB
Conclusions
References
7 Ruins of Resilience: Imaginaries and Materiality Imagineered and Embedded in Civil Defence Architecture
Ruins and Catastrophe Imagineered
Getting to Denmark
Building the Perfect Ruins
Performing and Taming Nuclear Catastrophe
Conclusions
References
8 Framing Civil Defence Critique: Swiss Physicians’ Resistance to the Coordinated Medical Services in the 1980s
Mobilising the Nation to Save the ‘Swiss People’
Practices of Resistance: Claiming That Individual Action Matters
Civil Defence Critics: Between Public Enemies and Public Support
Conclusion
References
9 Remembering Desirable Futures? Civil Defence Memories and Everyday Life in Sweden and the UK
Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Civil Defence Memories
Civil Defence Memories in Sweden and the UK
Localities
Temporalities
Mediations
Conclusion
References
10 Conclusion: Civil Defence Futures (Re)imagined
Theoretical Reflections
Common Themes and New Insights
Preparedness Redux
References
Index
