We've always lived on a dangerous planet, but its disasters aren't what
they used to be. How the World Breaks gives us a breathtaking new view
of crisis and recovery on the unstable landscapes of the Earth's hazard
zones. Father and son authors Stan and Paul Cox take us to the explosive
fire fronts of overheated Australia, the future lost city of Miami, the
fights over whether and how to fortify New York City in the wake of
Sandy, the Indonesian mud volcano triggered by natural gas drilling, and
other communities that are reimagining their lives after quakes,
superstorms, tornadoes, and landslides.
In the very decade when we should be rushing to heal the atmosphere and
address the enormous inequalities of risk, a strange idea has taken hold
of global disaster policy: resilience. Its proponents say that
threatened communities must simply learn the art of resilience, adapt to
risk, and thereby survive. This doctrine obscures the human hand in
creating disasters and requires the planet's most beleaguered people to
absorb the rush of floodwaters and the crush of landslides, freeing the
world economy to go on undisturbed. The Coxes' great contribution is to
pull the disaster debate out of the realm of theory and into the muck
and ash of the world's broken places. There we learn that change is more
than mere adaptation and life is more than mere survival. Ultimately,
How the World Breaks reveals why--unless we address the social,
ecological, and economic roots of disaster--millions more people every
year will find themselves spiraling into misery. It is essential reading
for our time.
