“Places of risk� and “sites of modernity� refer not merely to physical locations, but also objects and institutions that stand at the center of contemporary debates on security and risk. These are social and political domains where energy and infrastructure are produced, where domestic security is pursued and maintained, and where citizens encounter the state in its punitive or monitory roles. Taking a wide view of the period from the 1970s to today, this volume brings together innovative, interdisciplinary case studies of sites of modernity that promise to provide security and safety, yet at the same time are deemed responsible for creating new risks. With a particular contemporary interest in the technocratic changes of security and risk control the contributors to Sites of Modernity — Places of Risk position the 1970s as a turning point in the path from industrial to post-industrial modernity.

This collection addresses key issues in the historical struggle for civil rights, political rights, and social rights in the United States and Germany from the late nineteenth century to the present. Using a cross-national comparative approach, this book presents national case studies that explore the similarities and differences of conceptualizing rights on both sides of the Atlantic. This book analyzes the struggle for these rights by individuals and groups and how this struggle became an essential feature not only in political discourse but also in social and political practice and culture in both Germany and the United States. More specifically, the book examines the different ways rights have been denied due to race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. Considerable attention is given to the impact of Nazism and the struggle for social rights during and after World War II.

This book addresses key issues in the historical struggle for civil rights, political rights, and social rights in the United States and Germany from the late nineteenth century to the present. The essays address issues such as the struggle for the rights of women and minorities (including African Americans, Jews, and Asians), National Socialism and the dismantling of civil rights, and the emergence of the concept of social rights. What becomes clear are the unique features that distinguish German from American history and that these differences have been created by both social movements and dissimilar cultures of rights.