There has been a growing sociological interest in both risk and its management, and with how we cope with the uncertainties of late 20th- century life. Understanding accidents is the key to understanding the risk society, for accidents are both the paradigmatic challenge for risk technologies to predict the apparently unpredictable and the ultimate

Judith Green is Lecturer in Sociology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Preface, Acknowledgements, 1 Introduction, 2 Accidents and social science, 3 Modernity and the emergence of accidents, 4 Medicine and morality, 5 Health promotion and the preventable accident, 6 Risk and high modernity, 7 The social construction of accidents, 8 Conclusions: towards an archaeology of accidents, References, Index