Social Science Disasters

It'll help you organize and plan for any kind of disaster and teach you a lot of things that you didn't know. And why? Because the author is both a fire and a flood survivor himself.

Martin and Annelise Anderson drew upon their access to more than eight million classified documents housed within the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. What emerges from this treasure trove of material is evidence that Reagan intended from his first days in office to bring down the Soviet Union, that he considered eliminating nuclear weapons his paramount objective, and that he was the principal architect of the policies that brought the Soviets to the nuclear-arms negotiating table.

American engineers have done astounding things to bend the Mississippi River to their will: forcing one of its tributaries to flow uphill, transforming over 1000 miles of roiling currents into a placid staircase of water, and wresting the lower half of the river apart from its floodplain. American law has aided and abetted these feats. But despite our best efforts, so-called "natural disasters" continue to strike the Mississippi basin as raging floodwaters decimate waterfront communities and abandoned towns literally crumble into the Gulf of Mexico.

A gripping narrative history of the 1889 Johnstown Flood - the deadliest flood in US history - from New York Times best-selling author, NBC host, and legendary weather authority Al Roker. May 1889: After a deluge of rainfall swelled the Little Conemaugh River, panicked engineers watched helplessly as swiftly rising waters threatened to breach the South Fork Dam in central Pennsylvania. Though they telegraphed neighboring towns, warning of the impending danger, residents, used to false alarms, remained in their homes. At 3:10 p.m., the dam gave way....

A lethal mix of natural disaster, dangerously flawed construction, and reckless human actions devastated San Francisco in 1906 and New Orleans in 2005...the poor, the elderly, and the medically infirm were disproportionately among the thousands who perished. In Recovering Inequality, Steve Kroll-Smith builds a convincing case that disaster recovery and the reestablishment of social and economic inequality are inseparable.

In Tinder Box, Tony Hatch, former CBS reporter and Emmy Award winner, tells the Iroquois story as it has never been told before. In a rush to open the theater on time, corners were cut, and the Iroquois lacked the most basic fire-fighting equipment: sprinklers, fire alarm boxes, backstage telephone, exit signs, and functioning asbestos curtain. Some exits, for aesthetic reasons, were hidden behind heavy draperies, doors opened inward, and exterior fire escapes were unfinished.

Ohne Vorwarnung kam die Flut über das Ahrtal. In der Nacht vom 14. auf den 15. Juli 2021 brach eine Katastrophe über die beschauliche Weinregion herein. Zurück blieben Schlamm, unfassbares Leid und viele Jahre harter Arbeit, die den Bewohnern nun bevorstehen. Andy Neumann nimmt die Leser mit in diese Situation und macht auf sehr persönliche Weise deutlich, welche Kämpfe die Bewohner des Ahrtals durchstehen mussten. Feinsinnig und mit einer Prise Humor, insbesondere aber von einem klaren Willen geprägt: weitermachen.

En estos tiempos de coronavirus, de enorme --y aún incierto-- daño humano, económico y social, se está observando, analizando y debatiendo cómo la crisis y el prolongado confinamiento están cambiando nuestras costumbres, actividades, estados de ánimo, escalas de valores y prioridades.

When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World". But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.

Ignited by a lightning strike in a remote forest, the Currowan fire was one of the most terrifying episodes of Australia's Black Summer. It burnt for 74 days, consuming nearly 5,000 square kilometres of land, destroying well over 500 homes and leaving many people shattered. In the aftermath, there were questions. Why were resources so few that many faced the flames alone? Why was there back-burning on a day of extreme fire danger? Why weren’t they better prepared?

The 'duty of care' which the state owes to its citizens is a phrase much used, but what has it actually meant in Britain historically? And what should it mean in the future, once the immediate COVID crisis has passed? In A Duty of Care, Peter Hennessy divides post-war British history into BC (before corona) and AC (after corona). He looks back to beginnings when, during wartime, Sir William Beveridge identified the 'five giants' on the road to recovery: want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness and laid the foundations for the modern welfare state.

People say that "you can never be too prepared" for a disaster - and while that is true, there is such a thing as over-preparation. If preparing for a possible disaster in the future significantly impairs your family's quality of life today, you might need to reassess your priorities. Living in a constant state of terror and paranoia is not something I am particularly fond of. I'm not one of those people who has built such an incredible fortress for myself that I'm almost giddy about the idea of getting a chance to use it.

Matt Damon besuchte 2006 das ländliche Sambia und traf dort Frauen und Mädchen, die täglich mehrere Stunden damit zubrachten, ihre Familien mit Wasser aus weit entfernten Quellen zu versorgen – Zeit, die ihnen fehlte, um zu spielen, zur Schule zu gehen oder eigenes Geld zu verdienen. Über zwei Milliarden Menschen weltweit haben keinen sicheren Zugang zu sauberem Trinkwasser und sanitären Anlagen.

The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. This flash flood of information—social media, satellite imagery, and more—is often referred to as Big Data. Making sense of this data deluge during disasters is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations, which explains why they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians.

A un año del desastre, esta obra investiga qué salió mal en 19 de los edificios más dañados por el temblor. ¿Por qué hubo tantos muertos 32 años después del terremoto de 1985? El libro, así, pinta cuáles son los problemas que resquebrajaron México... y alerta: si no se solucionan, volverá a ocurrir una tragedia similar.

In just a few weeks, everything changed. Hopes that we would soon return to normal quickly faded as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world. Christian leaders have been forced to deal with the loss of in-person gatherings, devastating financial hits, and the heightened anxiety of facing a future with no clear understanding of what it may look like. Tod Bolsinger has provided a unique resource applying some of his key insights to the current global crisis. Christian leaders will find wisdom and encouragement to provide the kind of resilient leadership that has never been so necessary.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but the decisions that caused the disaster extend across the 20th century. After the city weathered a major hurricane in 1915, its Sewerage and Water Board believed that developers could safely build housing away from the high ground near the Mississippi. And so New Orleans grew in lowlands that relied on significant government subsidies to stay dry.

L'infinito errore rivela la storia segreta della pandemia, una versione che le fonti ufficiali non ci hanno mai, ancora, raccontato. Grazie a testimonianze e informazioni inedite - tra cui l'analisi di oltre diecimila documenti e l'accesso alle banche dati che registrano l'identità genetica dei virus - questa inchiesta ripercorre l'intero viaggio compiuto dal coronavirus: dalle grotte infestate di pipistrelli ai laboratori cinesi dove i nuovi agenti patogeni sono stati studiati in collaborazione con i centri di ricerca americani.

After is an astounding, inspiring, and exciting account of America in the first year of the September 12 era. Based on 347 on-the-record interviews and revelations from memos of government meetings, court filings, and other documents, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes us inside the critical dramas of the year after the September 11 attacks, from the Justice Department's drive to find terror cells to Congress's decision to bail out the airline industry.

An optimistic vision of the future after Covid-19 by a leading professor of globalisation at the University of Oxford. We are at a crossroads. The wrecking-ball of Covid-19 has destroyed global norms. Many think that after the devastation there will be a bounce back. To Ian Goldin, Professor of Development and Globalisation at the University of Oxford, this is a retrograde notion. He believes that this crisis can create opportunities for change, just as the Second World War forged the ideas behind the Beveridge Report.