'Magisterial ... Immensely readable' Douglas Alexander, Financial Times 'Insightful, productively provocative and downright brilliant' New York Times A compelling history of catastrophes and their consequences, from 'the most brilliant British historian of his generation' (The Times) Disasters are inherently hard to predict. But when catastrophe strikes, we ought to be better prepared than the Romans were when Vesuvius erupted or medieval Italians when the Black Death struck. We have science on our side, after all. Yet the responses of many developed countries to a new pathogen from China were badly bungled. Why? While populist rulers certainly performed poorly in the face of the pandemic, Niall Ferguson argues that more profound pathologies were at work - pathologies already visible in our responses to earlier disasters. Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson shows, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline. 'Stimulating, thought-provoking ... Readers will find much to relish' Martin Bentham, Evening Standard

Flood hazards and the risks they present to human health are an increasing concern across the globe, in terms of lives, well-being and livelihoods, and the public resources needed to plan for, and deal with, the health impacts. This book is the first detailed assessment and discussion of the global health implications of flooding and future flood risk. It combines an analysis of the human health impacts of flooding with analysis of individual and societal response to those risks, and sets these findings in light of potential future increases in flood hazard as a result of climate change. Written and edited by leading researchers and practitioners on flood hazards and human health, the volume brings together findings from epidemiological, environmental, social and institutional studies, with analysis rooted in an approach that emphasizes the developmental as well as environmental causes of flood risk, and the socially differentiated nature of vulnerability and coping capacity. The first part of the book sets out the scope of the issues, and provides a detailed discussion of the global health impacts of floods and the nature of human response to the health risks posed. The second part presents new research evidence on specific health aspects of floods covering mental health, infectious diseases, local level responses and the responses of health systems - drawing on case study material from Europe, Africa, Asia and North America, including the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The conclusion synthesizes insights from the previous chapters and discusses priorities for policy, practice and research. It draws out implications for present and future adaptation to flooding, and emphasizes the need to integrate action on health with the broader agenda of long-term risk reduction. This is indispensable reading for professionals and researchers working on hazard and disaster planning, risk reduction and public health in all countries and contexts.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit land and gravely affected the lives of many people in the states along the Gulf Coast. Katrina went beyond demonstrating the devastating natural effects of a hurricane by exposing the continuing significance of race relations and racial stereotyping in U.S. society.Racing the Storm serves to highlight the race-based perceptions of and responses to Katrina survivors by governmental entities, volunteers, the media, and the general public. Scholars from a variety of disciplines take on the task of analyzing the social phenomena and racial implications surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit land and gravely affected the lives of many people in the states along the Gulf Coast. Katrina went beyond demonstrating the devastating natural effects of a hurricane by exposing the continuing significance of race relations and racial stereotyping in U.S. society.Racing the Storm serves to highlight the race-based perceptions of and responses to Katrina survivors by governmental entities, volunteers, the media, and the general public. Scholars from a variety of disciplines take on the task of analyzing the social phenomena and racial implications surrounding Hurricane Katrina.

Nowhere are floods more paradoxical than in the generally arid Australian continent. This book brings together experts in meteorology, hydrology, limnology, ornithology, landscape ecology, veterinary and medical sciences, economics, anthropology and sociology to synthesize current knowledge on floods, their occurrence, and their consequences for the environment and societies in the Australian context.
Floods can have either beneficial or detrimental effects on the landscape and human societies. This book fills this important gap in our study and offers a multidisciplinary approach in understanding the effects of global climate change. The editors provide complete coverage on dynamics, patterns and consequences of floods, studied from several perspectives. Although the geographic focus of the book is Australia, the synthesis that is detailed in this book will undoubtedly be useful for the understanding of floods in all other regions of the planet.
* Offers detailed trends of effects on global climatic change
* Provides an understanding of past and future floods in Australia
* Discusses disturbances on landscape
* Includes effects on aquatic birds, infectious diseases, and economy

Even before the wreckage of a disaster is cleared, one question is foremost in the minds of the public: "What can be done to prevent this from happening again?" Today, news media and policymakers often invoke the "lessons of September 11" and the "lessons of Hurricane Katrina." Certainly, these unexpected events heightened awareness about problems that might have contributed to or worsened the disasters, particularly about gaps in preparation. Inquiries and investigations are made that claim that "lessons" were "learned" from a disaster, leading us to assume that we will be more ready the next time a similar threat looms, and that our government will put in place measures to protect us. In "Lessons of Disaster", Thomas Birkland takes a critical look at this assumption. We know that disasters play a role in setting policy agendas - in getting policymakers to think about problems - but does our government always take the next step and enact new legislation or regulations? To determine when and how a catastrophic event serves as a catalyst for true policy change, the author examines four categories of disasters: aviation security, homeland security, earthquakes, and hurricanes. He explores lessons learned from each, focusing on three types of policy change: change in the larger social construction of the issues surrounding the disaster; instrumental change, in which laws and regulations are made; and political change, in which alliances are created and shifted. Birkland argues that the type of disaster affects the types of lessons learned from it, and that certain conditions are necessary to translate awareness into new policy, including media attention, salience for a large portion of the public, the existence of advocacy groups for the issue, and the preexistence of policy ideas that can be drawn upon. This timely study concludes with a discussion of the interplay of multiple disasters, focusing on the initial government response to Hurricane Katrina and the negative effect the September 11 catastrophe seems to have had on reaction to that tragedy.

Heartbreaking stories from survivors along the Texas Gulf Coast Hurricane Harvey was one of the worst American natural disasters in recorded history. It ravaged the Texas Gulf Coast, and left thousands of people homeless in its wake. In Hurricane Harvey's Aftermath, Kevin M. Fitzpatrick and Matthew L. Spialek offer first-hand accounts from survivors themselves, providing a rare, on-the-ground perspective of natural disaster recovery. Drawing on interviews from more than 350 survivors, the authors trace the experiences of individuals and their communities, both rich and poor, urban and rural, white, Latinx, and Black, and how they navigated the long and difficult road to recovery after Hurricane Harvey. From Corpus Christi to Galveston, they paint a vivid, compelling picture of heartache and destruction, as well as resilience and recovery, as survivors slowly begin rebuilding their lives and their communities. An emotionally provocative read, Hurricane Harvey's Aftermath provides insight into how ordinary people experience and persevere through a disaster in an age of environmental vulnerability.

"By far the single most important account and analysis of the Katrina catastrophe." David L. Clark, McMaster University In his newest provocative book, prominent social critic Henry A. Giroux shows how the tragedy and suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina signals a much larger crisis in the United States-one that threatens the very nature of individual freedom and inclusive democracy. This crisis extends far beyond matters of leadership, governance, or the Bush administration. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart of democracy and must be understood within a broader set of antidemocratic forces that not only made the social disaster underlying Katrina possible, but also contribute to an emerging authoritarianism in the United States. Questions regarding who is going to die and who is going to live are driving a new form of authoritarianism in the United States. Within this form of "dirty democracy" a new and more insidious set of forces-embedded in our global economy-have largely given up on the sanctity of human life, rendering some groups as disposable and privileging others. Giroux offers up a vision of hope that creates the conditions for multiple collective and global struggles that refuse to use politics as an act of war and markets as the measure of democracy. Making human beings superfluous is the essence of totalitarianism, and democracy is the antidote in urgent need of being reclaimed. Katrina will keep the hope of such a struggle alive because for many of us the images of those floating bodies serve as a desperate reminder of what it means when justice, as the lifeblood of democracy, becomes cold and indifferent.

"By far the single most important account and analysis of the Katrina catastrophe." David L. Clark, McMaster University In his newest provocative book, prominent social critic Henry A. Giroux shows how the tragedy and suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina signals a much larger crisis in the United States-one that threatens the very nature of individual freedom and inclusive democracy. This crisis extends far beyond matters of leadership, governance, or the Bush administration. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart of democracy and must be understood within a broader set of antidemocratic forces that not only made the social disaster underlying Katrina possible, but also contribute to an emerging authoritarianism in the United States. Questions regarding who is going to die and who is going to live are driving a new form of authoritarianism in the United States. Within this form of "dirty democracy" a new and more insidious set of forces-embedded in our global economy-have largely given up on the sanctity of human life, rendering some groups as disposable and privileging others. Giroux offers up a vision of hope that creates the conditions for multiple collective and global struggles that refuse to use politics as an act of war and markets as the measure of democracy. Making human beings superfluous is the essence of totalitarianism, and democracy is the antidote in urgent need of being reclaimed. Katrina will keep the hope of such a struggle alive because for many of us the images of those floating bodies serve as a desperate reminder of what it means when justice, as the lifeblood of democracy, becomes cold and indifferent.

Flood hazards and the risks they present to human health are an increasing concern across the globe, in terms of lives, well-being and livelihoods, and the public resources needed to plan for, and deal with, the health impacts. This book is the first detailed assessment and discussion of the global health implications of flooding and future flood risk. It combines an analysis of the human health impacts of flooding with analysis of individual and societal response to those risks, and sets these findings in light of potential future increases in flood hazard as a result of climate change. Written and edited by leading researchers and practitioners on flood hazards and human health, the volume brings together findings from epidemiological, environmental, social and institutional studies, with analysis rooted in an approach that emphasizes the developmental as well as environmental causes of flood risk, and the socially differentiated nature of vulnerability and coping capacity. The first part of the book sets out the scope of the issues, and provides a detailed discussion of the global health impacts of floods and the nature of human response to the health risks posed. The second part presents new research evidence on specific health aspects of floods covering mental health, infectious diseases, local level responses and the responses of health systems - drawing on case study material from Europe, Africa, Asia and North America, including the impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The conclusion synthesizes insights from the previous chapters and discusses priorities for policy, practice and research. It draws out implications for present and future adaptation to flooding, and emphasizes the need to integrate action on health with the broader agenda of long-term risk reduction. This is indispensable reading for professionals and researchers working on hazard and disaster planning, risk reduction and public health in all countries and contexts.

This book aims to present the overall existing tsunami hazard in the Caribbean Sea region, a region which is typically only associated with hurricanes. It initially presents an overview of all of the existing tsunami-causing factors found in the region: earthquakes, sub-aerial and submarine landslides, and submarine explosions. This is followed by field evidence of recent and pre-historic tsunami events, which gives credibility to all of this effort. The next section is a description of the tsunami hazard mitigation efforts being carried out locally and in collaboration with national and international programs. The final part is dedicated to the presentation of related recent research results.

Decision-Making in Emergency Management examines decisions the authors have made over their careers based on their combined training, experience and instinct. Through a broad range of case studies, readers discover how experience impacts decision-making in conjunction with research and tools available. While the use of science, data and industry standards are always the best option when it comes to handling emergency situations, not all emergency situations fit one known solution. This book comprehensively explores the question "Is 'instinct' a viable factor when faced with a challenging situation and how close does it match up with the best science available?"

Wallace Akin was two years old when the Tri-State Tornado picked up his house-with he and his mother inside-and dropped it atop two other collapsed buildings. Across town, his father lay unconscious near his auto shop, close to death, and Akin's brother managed to crawled from beneath the collapsed shop. All survived. Many others were not as fortunate: Earlier that afternoon, a supercell thunderstorm had spawned a tornado so deadly that it set records against which we still measure all other tornados. The storm ripped through southeast Missouri, southern Illinois, and southwest Indiana, killing 695 people and wounding 2,000, in a record-breaking 219-mile, 3-hour path of destruction. His hometown was the worst hit, losing 243 people to the tornado.
Using first-person accounts from his family and neighbors, newspaper stories, and diaries, Akin offers a blow-by-blow account of the storm from its first sighting to its final minutes. He also attempts to explain how it began-and how it changed his life.
As a young adult, Akin realized that the weather service could have warned its victims; research on tornado prediction had ceased for no apparent reason. This, combined with his upbringing in a town traumatized by weather, led him to choose a career in geography, specializing in climate. In The Forgotten Storm, he explains in clear language why tornadoes happen and how modern man may be making these storms more severe and more frequent. The result is a book both thrilling and horrific, renowned for its ability to touch people's lives by allowing forgotten tales of heroism and personal loss to come spiraling to the surface, one that adds to our understanding of the battle between man andnature.

COVID-19 has once again illuminated the ways in which health risks and negative health outcomes are tied to economic and social inequalities. Disabled people rank among those most disadvantaged in terms of education, income, and social inclusion and this exacerbated their risk of negative pandemic-related outcomes. From the start, it was clear that disabled people would be disproportionately affected by the pandemic and this solidified as the pandemic unfolded. Disability in the Time of Pandemic is a timely exploration of emerging research into the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for people with disabilities in their varied communities and across their complex identities. Using the insights, perspectives, and methods of a variety of disciplines including Anthropology, Disability Studies, Education, Physical and Rehabilitation Therapies, Public Health, Psychology, Sociology, and Women's and Gender Studies, authors explore the initial and ongoing effects of the global pandemic on people with disabilities in Canada, India, Poland, and the United States. The Research in Social Science and Disability series is essential reading for researchers and students across the social sciences interested in disability, social movements, activism, and identity.

The public increase of interest in the past has not necessarily brought with it a greater understanding about how archives are formed. To this end, Richard Cox takes a serious look at archival repositories and collections. Cox suggests that archives do not just happen, but are consciously shaped (and sometimes distorted) by archivists, the creators of records, and other individuals and institutions. In this series of essays, Cox offers archivists rare insight into the fundamentals of appraisal, and historians and other users of archives the opportunity to appreciate the collections they all too often take for granted.

Contents:
Foreword Preface List of figures and tables Part 1: Framework and Theory 1. The challenge of disasters and our approach 1.1 In at the deep end 1.2 Conventional views of disaster 1.3 What is vulnerability? 1.4 Changes since the first edition 1.5 The International decade for natural disaster reduction 1.6 Convergence and critique 1.7 Audiences 1.8 Scope and plan of the book 1.9 Limits and assumptions 2. The disaster pressure and release model 2.1 The nature of vulnerability 2.2 Cause and effects in the disaster pressure model 2.3 Time and the chain of explanation 2.4 Limits to our knowledge 2.5 Global trends and dynamic pressures 2.6 Uses of the pressure and release model 3. Access to resources and coping in adversity 3.1 Access to resources - an introduction 3.2 New thinking since 1994 3.3 'Normal life' - the formal Access model 3.4 Coping and access to safety Part 2: Vulnerability and Hazard Types 4. Famine and natural hazards 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Famines and their causes 4.3 Explanations of famine 4.4 Complex emergencies, policy famines and human rights 4.5 Causes, pressures, unsafe conditions and famine 4.6 Access and famines 4.7 Policy 4.8 Conclusion 5. Biological hazards 5.1 Introduction 5.2 What are biological hazards? 5.3 Limitations to our treatment of biological hazards 5.4 Biological links with other hazards 5.5 Livelihoods, resources and disasters 5.6 Vulnerability-creating processes 5.7 Pressures affecting defences against biological hazards 5.8 Root causes and pressures 5.9 Steps toward risk reduction 6. Floods 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Floods as known risks 6.3 Disastrous outcomes for vulnerable people 6.4 Floods and vulnerability 6.5 Summary: flood prevention and mitigation 7. Coastal storms 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The physical hazard 7.3 Patterns of vulnerability 7.4 Case-studies 7.5 Policy responses 8. Earthquakes and volcanoes 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Classic case-studies: Guatemala and Mexico 8.3 Recent case-studies 8.4 Volcanoes and related hazards 8.5 Goma, Congo, eruption of Mount Nyiragongo 2002 8.6 Policy response and mitigation Part 3: Towards a Safer Environment 9. Towards a safer environment 9.1 Towards a safer environment: are statements of intent merely hot air? 9.2 From Yokohama to Johannesburg via Geneva 9.3 Risk reduction objectives Notes Bibliography

This book contributes to a better understanding of the relationship between migration, vulnerability, resilience and social justice associated with flooding across diverse environmental, social and policy contexts in Southeast Asia. It challenges simple analyses of flooding as a singular driver of migration, and instead considers the ways in which floods figure in migration-based livelihoods and amongst already mobile populations. The book develops a conceptual framework based on a 'mobile political ecology' in which particular attention is paid to the multidimensionality, temporalities and geographies of vulnerability. Rather than simply emphasising the capacities (or lack thereof) of individuals and households, the focus is on identifying factors that instigate, manage and perpetuate vulnerable populations and places: these include the sociopolitical dynamics of floods, flood hazards and risky environments, migration and migrant-based livelihoods and the policy environments through which all of these take shape. The book is organised around a series of eight empirical urban and rural case studies from countries in Southeast Asia, where lives are marked by mobility and by floods associated with the region's monsoonal climate. The concluding chapter synthesises the insights of the case studies, and suggests future policy directions. Together, the chapters highlight critical policy questions around the governance of migration, institutionalised disaster response strategies and broader development agendas.

Case Studies in Disaster Mitigation and Prevention: Disaster and Emergency Management: Case Studies in Adaptation and Innovation series presents cases illustrating efforts to reduce human and material losses associated with disasters. This volume demonstrates that mitigation is an ongoing phase in which communities continually pursue long-term hazard resistance and reduction. Cases illustrate the importance of risk assessment in the development of mitigation strategies through hazard mapping and multi-hazard mitigation planning. Cases also illustrate approaches to reduction risk through structural and non-structural means, giving consideration to benefits or limitations of these strategies in different contexts. The contributions of different mitigation activities to disaster risk reduction efforts are examined using the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

This is a comprehensive guide to all types of natural and man made disasters and their effect on buildings. It gives overall guidance and a basic technical understanding of prevention, mitigation and management of disaster, and outlines a checklist of preventive design elements for each situation. Every category is illustrated with a case study which pin points the essential information that is crucial to architects and engineers in designing buildings with disaster prevention in mind. The aim of the book is to give a clear understanding of the nature of events and problems, and to enable readers to respond with knowledge to the unique demands placed on their designs. A special emphasis is also placed on re-building as an opportunity to start again. For the specialists this is a process of constant learning and improving techniques in the light of events past.

A riveting indictment of a government that fails to help citizens in need of aid, protection, and humanity The Shaming State argues that Americans have been abandoned by a government that has relinquished its duties of care toward its citizens. Sara Salman describes a government that withholds care in times of need and instead shames the very citizens it claims to serve, both poor and middle class. She argues that the state does so by emphasizing personal responsibility, thus tacitly blaming the needy for relying on state programs. This blame is pervasive in the American cultural imagination, existing in political discourse and internalized by Americans. This book explores how shaming is exhibited by state and political institutions by showing the ways in which the state withholds care, and how people who need that care are humiliated for failing to be self-sufficient. The Shaming State investigates the vanishing horizon of social rights in the United States and the dwindling of government support to both lower- and middle-class people. Focusing on Iraqi refugees and white home-owning New Yorkers, Salman demonstrates how both groups were faced with immense difficulty and humiliation when searching for access to assistance programs maintained by the government. Looking at the long-range trends, she argues that the last forty years have made the United States a market fundamentalist country, where the government does not offer unified aid and increasingly asks citizens to assume personal responsibility in the face of uncontrollable disasters. Whether it was Hurricane Katrina almost two decades ago or the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the indifferent and stagnant response by the American government not only amplified the consequences of these disasters but also increased hostility towards the vulnerable groups who needed help. Ultimately, The Shaming State tells stories of abandonment, loss, shame, and rage experienced by Americans and how the government has let them down time and time again.

* What makes some cities less vulnerable and more resilient in the face of natural disasters?* Examines the factors involved and draws invaluable lessons from case studies and analysis* Major contribution to urban studies, social development and disaster managementWhen disaster strikes in cities the effects can be far worse than in other human environments. But which factors determine how vulnerable a city is to such events, and how resilient it will be in recovering from them? Focusing on cities in the global South, this book examines the conditions that lead to high losses from urban disasters and the factors that enable some households and communities to withstand disaster more effectively. Through a range of detailed studies, it shows that strengthening local capacity-through appropriate housing, infrastructure and livelihoods-is crucial to improving resilience, and that effective community or municipal government is essential if cities are to cope with disasters successfully.This book marks a significant advance in our understanding of what works and what doesn't when cities are faced with extreme conditions, and how this can be applied when dealing with other events and stresses.

Natural Disaster and Development in a Globalizing World makes clear that there are links between global scale processes and local experiences of disaster, but underlies the difficulty of attributing blame for individual disasters on specific global pressures. It argues that action to reduce disaster needs to be coordinated at the local, national and global scales and that there is a need for greater integration across the physical and social sciences. In this context, the human rights agenda is seen as a way of moving disaster reduction efforts forward.

Between Sanity and Madness: Mental Illness from Ancient Greece to the Neuroscientific Era examines several perennial issues about mental illness: how different societies have distinguished mental disorders from normality; whether mental illnesses are similar to or different from organic conditions; and the ways in which different eras conceive of the causes of mental disorder. It begins with the earliest depictions of mental illness in Ancient Greek literature, philosophy, and medicine and concludes with the portrayals found in modern neuroscience. In contrast to the tremendous advances other branches of medicine display in answering questions about the nature, causes, and treatments of physical diseases, current psychiatric knowledge about what qualities of madness distinguish it from sanity, the resemblance of mental and physical pathologies, and the kinds of factors that lead people to become mentally ill does not show any steady growth or, arguably, much progress. The immense recent technological advances in brain science have not yet led to corresponding improvements in understandings of and explanations for mental illnesses. These perplexing phenomena remain almost as mysterious now as they were millennia ago.

Contents:
Foreword Acknowledgement Introduction: Of Jellyfish and Coups 1. 'Vulnerability' as Western Discourse 2. Environment and Hazard in Southeast Asia 3. A History of Hazard in the Philippines 4. The 'Costs' of Hazard in the Contemporary Philippines 5. The Politics of Disaster Management and Relief 6. The Economics of Red Tides 7. The Social Order and the El Nino Southern Oscillation 8. Cultures of Disaster Conclusion: Hazard as a Frequent Life Experience Notes Bibliography

Human cultures have been interacting with natural hazards since the dawn of time. This book explores these interactions in detail and revisits some famous catastrophes including the eruptions of Thera and Vesuvius. These studies demonstrate that diverse human cultures had well-developed strategies which facilitated their response to extreme natural events.


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