London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2017.
218 p. 22 cm.
This is a disturbing book and it should be. It tells the history of how pain and distress inducing poison gas went from the less-than-lethal gas (yet still condemned by decent people) used against soldiers during WWI to the go-to poison used by police and military forces of governments around the world to squash protests that they deem threatening to their order - no matter how unjust or unpopular.
The really interesting back story is how US marketing in the 1920s eventually triumphed in reshaping the perception of tear gas from a painful and uncivilized poison used against mostly-unarmed people to being considered a non-lethal alternative to more violent repressive tools of the state. This book does a great job of showing that though tear gas - when used in moderation in an open-air environment - is not generally lethal, it's use by government forces throughout history has been such as to intentionally harm, maim and kill people. This has been done by firing canisters and grenades directly at protesters (often at close range) and by using it in enclosed situations such as houses, prisons, cars, tunnels and buses.
The author also does a good job of showing how the use of tear gas rises when economic injustice is greater - during depressions, food shortages, violent occupations, etc. Tear gas has been a crucial tool in unjust governments attacking protesters and destroying movements instead of addressing underlying inequities. She also does a thorough job of showing how tear gas has been an integral part of the increasing militarization of police forces around the world (and showing how profitable this has been to suppliers).
For anyone interested in the history of this poisonous gas and learning how it has come to be so commonly used by all types of governments, I would highly recommend Feigenbaum's Tear Gas.
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