Stephen Keane's history of the disaster genre offers a detailed analysis
of films such as The Towering Inferno, Independence Day, Titanic,
and The Day After Tomorrow. He looks at the ways in which disaster
movies can be read in relation to both contextual considerations and the
increasing commercial demands of contemporary Hollywood. In this second
edition, he adds new material regarding cinematic representations of
disaster in the wake of 9/11 and an analysis of disaster movies in light
of recent natural disasters. Keane continually reworks this previously
unexplored genre.