The aim of this conference is to take stock of the present by focusing on modern Europe and North America from roughly 1750 onwards. It welcomes historians from all sub-fields (social, medical, cultural, etc.), scholars from other disciplines such as sociology and cultural studies. Risk, welfare and safety have long been sites of historical inquiry. This conference takes this literature as its point of departure, and encourages both general and trans-national appraisals of the history and nature of modern "risk societies", as well as accounts which focus on particular technologies, practices and discourses. In sum, the aim of "Accidents and Emergencies" is to: rethink the history of risk, welfare and safety; encourage a more integrated approach to their empirical study and conceptualisation; open up new historical and sociological perspectives through which we might better grasp the present.