The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective - Softcover

Oliver-Smith, Anthony; Hoffman, Susanna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415919878 ISBN 13: 9780415919876

Publisher: Routledge, 1999

Synopsis

From hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes to oil spills and nuclear accidents, natural and technological disasters have become increasingly frequent and destructive across the planet. This ground-breaking collection of essays explores how various cultures in different historical moments have responded to calamity, offering new insights into the complex relationship between society and environment. Through case studies of communities in Great Britain, the Mediterranean, Asia and the Americas, contributors examine issues ranging from the social and political factors that set the stage for disaster, to the cultural processes experienced by survivors, to the long-term impact of disasters on culture and society.

About this title

Product Description:

This work takes a close look at disasters and the response of victims in the immediate aftermath and over the long-run. It demonstrates how disasters arise from human propensity to take risks which make them vulnerable to cataclysms, whether natural or technologically related. This collection is the first to adequately represent the cultural, historical and geographical scope and complexities of the problem of disaster. It introduces a range of perspectives and arguments, with compelling examples.

Review:

""The Angry Earth breaks new ground as anthropologists take a close look at disasters and the response of victims in the immediate aftermath and over the long-run. The book demonstrates how disasters arise from the human propensity to take risks that make people vulnerable to cataclysms, whether natural or technologically related and demonstrates how far anthropology has moved from models that assumed stasis and equilibrium." The Angry Earth should be read by all who deal with disaster situations."
-Elizabeth Colson, author of "The Social Consequences of Resettlement
""The Angry Earth will certainly help make disasters salient to students just coming to anthropology and, one hopes, move others across disciplinary boundaries toward new questions and new perspectives. Offering new and established scholars a promising framework for the new disaster social science now being written, this book belongs on all our reading lists. International Journal of Mass Emergenciesand Disasters, August 2000, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 347-349 This collection is the first to adequately represent the cultural, historical and geographical scope and complexities of the problem of disaster. It introduces a range of useful perspectives and arguments, with compelling examples. One wishes such a collection had been available to help define the agenda for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, now ending."
-Kenneth Hewitt, author of" Regions of Risk: a Geographical Introduction to Disasters and editor of Interpretations of Calamity
"The sixteen essays in "The Angry Earth provide empirically fascinating, theoretically compelling, and often heart wrenching analyses of the constitution, effects and human experience of disasters... There can be no doubt that the essays in this volume are essential reading for those interested in hazards and disaster studies.."
-Environments

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0415919878
• ISBN 13: 9780415919876
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352