Introduction

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter poses the central questions the book was designed to answer. Why was there a blood crisis in France? Why was there no crisis in the United States? Chapter 1 introduces the 1991 French blood crisis as the fulcrum around which this book is organized, summarizing the background to this crisis and its absence in the United States, with explicit attention to the criteria by which “crisis” is defined. “Political crisis” is understood as a social production. The books outlines our theoretical framework for the social production of crisis grounded in relevant sociological theory and in comparative cross-national analysis of data from a wide range of sources, both historical, and contemporary with the events in question. Finally, the chapter closes with a summary of the plan for the book.