Disasters, Risks and Revelation Making Sense of Our Times [Hardcover]

Disasters are part of the modern condition, a source of physical anxiety and existential angst, and they are increasing in frequency, cost and severity. Drawing on both disaster research and social theory, this book offers a critical examination of their causes, consequences and future avoidance.

1. Introduction
2. Sociology and Disasters
3. Accidents, Disasters and Revelation
4. The New Normal
5. Riskworld? New Species of Trouble
6. Political Economy, I: Capitalism and Disaster
7. Political Economy, II: Capitalism as Disaster
8. Everyday Disaster: Notes on Low Visibility Catastrophe
9. Conclusions

A very interesting book that reviews a large amount of literature, both theoretical and conceptual, and re-presents this in an accessible manner. & It will be of interest to those working in the field of disasters as it brings together rich description of the work of a number of key researchers into one text. & To those sociologists who have not yet engaged with the issue of disaster, you could start nowhere better than with this text. (Sarah Bradshaw, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 122 (4), January, 2017)

Steve Matthewman is Associate Professor in Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is an established writer and co-editor, and has over 12 years' experience teaching introductory level sociology courses across various institutions in New Zealand'A book that drills to the heart of one of the characteristic, but unremarked features of present times: disaster glut. In a richly documented, eminently readable text, Matthewman explodes the twin mystique that disasters are either natural or random events [ ] This is Sociology as it should be: a book that shows how, and why, we are brain-blind about the operation of power and influence in framing our comprehension of the real wol#£