Customer Reviews

Catastrophes and Disasters (Chambers Compact Reference Series)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book, part of the Chambers Encyclopedic reference series, looks at catastrophes of all kinds and arranges them by category in alphabetical order from air disasters to windstorms. Wars and terrorist acts are generally excluded. Each entry provides basic coverage of a calamity, and a small box after each account tells the reader about an interesting fact or aspect related to the event. This book is fine for the general reader with an interest in this area, but it must be noted that not all of the information is accurate, so one must be careful not to rely too heavily on what is written here.

This book is part of the Chambers Compact Reference series of books. As the title of the series makes plain, the books are intended to be short reference books on their respective subjects. This book is intended to be a compact encyclopedia of catastrophes and disasters, giving a quick introduction to each disaster, and allowing him or her to then go on to study the subject more in-depth in other works.

For the most part, I found this to be a very good book. As it was published in 1992, it is missing may more recent disasters, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and so forth. That's very unfortunate. But, it does nonetheless have a wealth of information on many disasters, and is quite an interesting read.