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Abstract
This article aims at historicizing the ‘risk society’ thesis (Ulrich Beck). I first present an important book by Eugène Huzar, La Fin du monde par la science (Paris: Dentu, 1855). The author reflects upon the global catastrophes produced by new technologies and tries to imagine a safer way of governing science and nature. I contextualize this work by providing a series of case studies on various 19th‐century technological controversies (ranging from deforestation to vaccination and the chemical industry). I argue that, in every case, what is usually put under the label ‘resistance’ to progress was in fact crucial for the shaping of safer technologies.
Notes
[1] Beck, Risk Society.
[2] Giddens, Modernity and Self Identity.
[3] Luhmann, Risk: A Sociological Theory.
[4] Nowotny et al., Re‐Thinking Science.
[5] Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility.
[6] Proposals vary from a democratization of technoscience and expertise (Rip, Managing Technology in Society), the heuristics of fear (Jonas, The Imperative of Responsibility; Dupuy, Pour un catastrophisme éclairé) to a complete renewal of our cosmopolitics (Serres, The Natural Contract; Latour, Politics of Nature).
[7] Huzar, La fin du monde; Huzar, L’arbre de la science. Eugène Huzar seems to have cultivated eclectic interests. His books are full of references to science, medicine, politics, philosophy and religion. He mentions going to courses at the Conservatoire des arts et métiers and attending chemical experiments. Well versed in the symbolism of religions, he takes pleasure in showing the similarities between different mythologies. For example, since many religions across the globe share the idea of a fall of man because of his hubris, they must refer to the same actual event, that is according to his system, a global disaster caused by science. Furthermore, Huzar argued that history is cyclical and that in the nineteenth century mankind was once again approaching Eden and its calamitous conclusion. Politically he was a fervent republican: against Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, he published in 1850 a bill proposing that the National Assembly move to Bourges so as to resist a possible usurpation. He also read many socialist authors, in particular Charles Fourrier and his important essay ‘Détérioration matérielle de la planète.’
[8] Huzar, L’arbre de la science, 40.
[9] Huzar, La fin du monde, 32.
[10] Huzar, L’arbre de la science, 129–31.
[11] Ibid., 106.
[12] Ibid., 110.
[13] Ibid., 112–3.
[14] Ibid., 275.
[15] Ibid., 277.
[16] Ibid., 278.
[17] Ibid., 70.
[18] Huzar, La fin du monde, 24.
[19] Ibid., 162.
[20] Among others: l’Illustration, le Courrier, l’Athénaum, l’Artiste, la Revue française, la Revue de Paris, l’Organe de l’industrie, l’Univers, le Moniteur, la Gazette de France, La Revue Britannique, le Siècle. The book was also reviewed in Britain: ‘All up with every thing’, Household Words, 318, 25 April 1856, 336–9.
[21] Courrier de Paris, 21 October 1857. See: Lamartine, Cours familier de littérature; Félix, Le Progrès par le christianisme. Other Huzar’s legacies could well be Jules Verne’s novels: Sans dessus dessous and l’Eternel Adam, which describe catastrophes similar to Huzar’s.
[22] Courrier de Paris, 21 October 1857.
[23] L’Artiste, 9 August 1857.
[24] Beck, ‘From Industrial Society.’
[25] Girard and Parent‐Duchatelet, ‘Des puits forés ou artésiens;’ Barles, La Ville délétère.
[26] Rauch, Harmonie hydrovégétale et météorologie, 1, 12. On Rauch’s natural networks see: Larrère, ‘Les utopies de François Antoine Rauch.’ The history of the forest–climate relationship (which can be traced back to Theophrastus of Erasia) is yet to be written. Since the 17th century at least, one can find such anxieties regularly voiced by the French provincial Parliaments. For a good treatment of this problem in the 18th century tropical and colonial setting see: Grove, Green Imperialism.
[27] Cadet de Vaux, ‘Observations sur la sécheresse actuelle.’
[28] Procès‐Verbaux de l’Académie des sciences, 16 February 1824.
[29] Arago, Œuvres complètes, 12, 432.
[30] Le Cosmos, 11 July 1856.
[31] For a social history of forest management see: Corvol, L’Homme au bois; Kalaora and Savoye, Forêt et sociologie.
[32] Herz, ‘L’inoculation brutale.’
[33] Vaumes, Les dangers de la vaccine.
[34] Chambon de Montaux, Comparaison des effets de la vaccine, 128
[35] Bertillon refuted Carnot’s use of mortality tables. See: Bertillon, Conclusions statistiques.
[36] Carnot, Essai de mortalité comparée.
[37] Modern histories of vaccination often describe it as such. See: Darmon, La longue traque. Antivaccinationism in France never gained the impetus it had in England. For England see Durbach, Bodily Matters.
[38] Huzar, L’arbre de la science, 124.
[39] Fressoz, ‘The Gas Lighting Controversy.’
[40] Nodier and Pichot, Essai critique sur le gaz hydrogène, 4.
[41] Des dangers de l’existence des gazomètres en ville, 7.
[42] Mangin, Les merveilles de l’industrie, 216.
[43] Tourneux, Encyclopédie des chemins de fer, 3.
[44] Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences, 15, 1842.
[45] Lan, Les chemins de fer français, 99; Stemmelen, ‘Une catastrophe technologique,’ 309.
[46] Girard, Mémoire sur l’écoulement uniforme; Navier, ‘Sur l’écoulement des fluides élastiques’.
[47] Arago, Œuvres complètes, 5, 117–77; Boutigny, Etudes sur les corps à l’état sphéroïdal.
[48] On the conseil de salubrité, see: Corbin, The Foul and the Fragrant; LaBerge, Mission and Method; Guillerme, Dangereux, insalubres et incommodes.
[49] Parent‐Duchatelêt, ‘Quelques considerations,’ 1833, 249.
[50] Parent‐Duchatelêt and Darcet, ‘Sur les véritables influences,’ 1829, 170.
[51] Vaumes, ‘Mémoire confidentiel sur la vaccine.’
[52] Clément‐Desormes, Appréciation du procédé d’éclairage.
[53] Raspail, Appel urgent.
[54] Bravais, De l’alimentation hygiénique. On the birth of the 1905 Food Regulation, see: Stanziani, Histoire de la qualité alimentaire.
[55] Bréchot, ‘Mémoire sur les accidents.’
[56] Smith, The Origins and Early Development; Daumalin, Du sel au pétrole.
[57] Mémoire et consultation contre les sieurs Mallez, 1818.
[58] De Villeneuve, ‘Des condensateurs des fabriques de soude,’ 129.
[59] MacKenzie and Wajcman, The Social Shaping of Technology.
[60] Latour, Politics of Nature.
