Acts of God : the unnatural history of natural disaster in America
- نوع فایل : کتاب
- زبان : انگلیسی
- مؤلف : Theodore Steinberg
- ناشر : New York : Oxford University Press
- چاپ و سال / کشور: 2006
- شابک / ISBN : 9780195309683
Description
Preface to the Second edition -- Return of the suppressed -- Last call for Judgement Day -- Disaster as archetype -- Do-it-yourself deathscape -- Body counting -- Federalizing risk -- Building for Apocalypse -- Uncle Sam-floodplain recidivist -- The perils of private property -- Containing calamity -- The Neurotic life of weather control -- Forecasting at the fair weather service -- Who pays? -- The Drowning of America -- Notes-Bibliography
As the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain began to pour into New Orleans, people began asking the big question--could any of this have been avoided? How much of the damage from Hurricane Katrina was bad luck, and how much was poor city planning? [This book] is a provocative history of natural disasters in the United States. This revised edition features a new chapter analyzing the failed response to Hurricane Katrina, a disaster Steinberg warned could happen when the book was first published. Focusing on America's worst natural disasters, Steinberg argues that it is wrong to see these tragedies as random outbursts of nature's violence or expressions of divine judgment. He reveals how the decisions of business leaders and government officials have paved the way for greater losses of life and property, especially among those least able to withstand such blows--America's poor, elderly, and minorities. Seeing nature of God as the primary culprit, Steinberg explains, has helped to hide the fact that some Americans are simply better able to protect themselves from the violence of nature than others
