“As disasters are increasing in number and intensity, so too will be the need for reconstruction…”
So reads a line from the blurb of Making Things Happen, Jane Murphy Thomas’ account of post-earthquake reconstruction in Pakistan. And, sadly, how prescient it was, for her book was published just weeks before the same nation experienced a new disaster, the terrible flooding that left more than 10% of it underwater.
Here we have gathered our most recent volumes on the subject of disaster in its many awful forms (earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, nuclear accidents, chemical spills, and more), and on our approaches to risk management, and the many challenges of post-disaster reconstruction.

MAKING THINGS HAPPEN
Community Participation and Disaster Reconstruction in Pakistan
Jane Murphy Thomas
Explores the sociocultural aspects of post-disaster infrastructure reconstruction. READ MORE

GOING FORWARD BY LOOKING BACK
Archaeological Perspectives on Socio-Ecological Crisis, Response, and Collapse
Edited by Felix Riede & Payson Sheets
Catalogues a wide and diverse range of case studies of disasters and human responses to them. READ MORE

DISASTER UPON DISASTER
Exploring the Gap Between Knowledge, Policy and Practice
Edited by Susanna M. Hoffman & Roberto E. Barrios
Illuminates the numerous disjunctions between academic and expert knowledge and the real-world policies and practices of agencies working in the field, and advances solutions for improved outcomes. READ MORE

CONSTRUCTING RISK
Disaster, Development, and the Built Environment
Stephen O. Bender
Examines the vulnerability of infrastructure to natural hazard events and proposes new development approaches. READ MORE

FAULT LINES
Earthquakes and Urbanism in Modern Italy
Giacomo Parrinello
Examines the history of Messina, Italy, and the Belice Valley, Sicily, before and after the earthquakes that largely destroyed them (1908 and 1968 respectively) and the developments that preceded the disasters and the urbanism that followed. READ MORE

CONTEXTUALIZING DISASTER
Edited by Gregory V. Button & Mark Schuller
Offers a comparative analysis of six recent “highly visible” disasters and several slow-burning, “hidden,” crises that include typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes, chemical spills, and the unfolding consequences of rising seas and climate change. READ MORE
JOURNALS: BERGHAHN OPEN ANTHRO
OPEN ACCESS

Recognition of factors that promote resilience to hurricanes
Adolfo Lucero Álvarez, Columba Rodríguez Alviso, Oscar Frausto Martínez, José Luis Aparicio López, Alejandro Díaz Garay, and Maximino Reyes Umaña
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