Disasters kill, maim, and generate increasingly large economic losses.
But they do not wreak their damage equally across populations, and every
disaster has social dimensions at its very core. This important book
sheds light on the social conditions and on the global, national, and
local processes that produce disasters.
Topics covered include the social roots of disaster vulnerability,
exposure to natural hazards such as hurricanes and tsunamis as a form of
environmental injustice, and emerging threats. Written by a leading
expert in the field, this book provides the necessary frameworks for
understanding hazards and disasters, exploring the contributions of very
different social science fields to disaster research and showing how
these ideas have evolved over time. Bringing the social aspects of
recent devastating disasters to the forefront, Tierney discusses the
challenges of conducting research in the aftermath of disasters and
critiques the concept of disaster resilience, which has come to be seen
as a key to disaster risk reduction.
Peppered with case studies, research examples, and insights from very
different disciplines, this rich introduction is an invaluable resource
to students and scholars interested in the social nature of disasters
and their relation to broader social forces.
