State, Science and the Skies

Mark Whitehead is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University; and Senior Research Fellow at the City Institute, York University, Toronto. His published works include Spaces of Sustainability: Geographical Perspectives on the Sustainable Society (2006); and The Nature of the State: Excavating the Political Ecologies of the Modern State (co-author, 2007).

• List of Figures and Tables. Series Editors' Preface.Preface.Acknowledgements.List of Abbreviations.1 Introduction: Space, History and the Governing of Air Pollution.2 Historical Geographies of Science and Government: Exploring the Apparatus of Atmospheric Knowledge Acquisition.3 Science, Sight and the Optics of Air Government.4 Governing Air Conduct: Exhibition, Examination and the Cultivation of the Atmospheric Self.5 Instrumentation and the Sites of Atmospheric Monitoring.6 A National Census of the Air: Spatial Science, Calculation and the Geo-Coding of the Atmosphere.7 Automating the Air: Atmospheric Simulations and Digital Beings.8 Environmental Governmentalities and the Ecological Coding of the British Atmosphere.9 Conclusion: Learning Like a State in an Age of Atmospheric Change.Notes.References.Index.

“Mark Whitehead’s 2009 book State, Science and the Skies constitutes a compelling and important contribution to the RGS–IBG Book Series . . . This fascinating book is part of an increasing literature on a much neglected area of study: the role and importance of the atmosphere in our lives (e.g. Jankovic, 2000; Latour, 2003; Strauss and Orlove, 2003; Kessel, 2006; Thornes, 2008) . . . State, Science and the Skies should provide us with an important guide to the geographies of the atmosphere. It is especially helpful in order to cultivate some sense of relief to Sloterdijk’s (2009) emphasis on the air as a means of administering death through environmental means.”  (Geoform, 1 September 2012)