American Disasters (Paperback)

by Steven Biel (Author) "RESIDENTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA cast nervous eyes to the sky above them on the night of September 4, 1686..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, San Francisco, Exxon Valdez (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In Don DeLillo's White Noise, the media response to a near plane crash suggests, in Biel's words, that "postmodern disasters... happen for the sake of television." In his introduction to these 13 essays, Biel argues that "disasters generate meanings and that these meanings... constitute an inseparable... part of the disasters' histories." Covering disasters both natural (hurricanes in colonial America, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) and mechanical (the Challenger explosion, Chicago's deadly 1977 el train crash), these essays use contemporary media and political responses to explicate the cultural ramifications of the events. Novels published after the great Chicago fire of 1871 emphasized how the fire was both a punishment for the city's sins and also "the inscrutable workings of a divine hand" to make Chicago a more perfect physical city. Feminist writings used the chivalry of male passengers in the 1912 Titanic sinking to criticize "the failure of men to protect women and children on shore," while African-Americans' view of it as a "white disaster" generated a large body of populist poems and songs that celebrated the absence of black victims. Some writers use these events to mark consequential moments of cultural change (the role of scientific engineering after the Galveston flood of 1900) or to mark journalistic biases (Chicago's major newspapers immediately blamed the African-American motorman of dereliction after the el disaster). Biel, the director of studies in history and literature at Harvard, has assembled a provocative and illuminating collection. (Dec.) Forecast: We may be too close to September 11 to appreciate a study of the meanings of disaster; still, the attacks could spur interest in how Americans responded to past disasters. This could reach a general readership if NYU can generate some publicity for it.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Biel (history and literature, Harvard; Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster) here considers 13 human-made and natural disasters, both famous and forgotten, that have occurred in American history, including the 1789 famine on the northern border, the San Francisco Earthquake, the Great Chicago Fire, and the Challenger disaster. Each disaster gets its own chapter, which is not simply a straightforward account of "what happened next"; contributors put each episode into context and question the popular "lessons" that were often propagated immediately after. Similar recent volumes include Ted Steinberg's Acts of God (LJ 9/1/00) and Dreadful Visitations, edited by Alessa Johns (Routledge, 2001). The important difference is that those books cover strictly natural disasters and as such only complement rather than substitute for this work. It is uncertain whether the publisher will use the terrorist attacks of September 11 as a touchstone for advertising this book, but the uncanny timing of its publication is hard to miss. Recommended for all libraries. Ellen D. Gilbert, Princeton, NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814713467
• ISBN-13: 978-0814713464
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
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• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,108,111 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)