Caley Horan, Insurance Era: Risk, Governance, and the Privatization of Security in Postwar America (2021). Caley Horan ends her compelling new history with a description of two divergent imaginaries about insurance. In 1914, philosopher Joyce Royce gave an address at Berkeley, in which he described his utopian vision for a global insurance community. Cooperation among the world’s nations might insure for a multiplicity of hazards, from war to natural disasters, and foster international solidarity in the process. In 1955, author Frederik Pohl offered wrote a novel that offered a far more cynical, dystopian view of insurance. Preferred Risk depicted a corporate entity that insured every conceivable risk – but only for those classified as meritorious … (more)
[Deborah Dinner, JOTWELL, 14 April]
First posted 2022-04-15 08:00:58
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