Natural Disasters, Cultural Responses Case Studies toward a Global Environmental History

According to UN statistics, approximately two hundered million people are directly affected every year by natural disasters-seven times the number of people who are affected by war. Discussions about global warming and fatal disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami of 2004 have heightened our awareness of natural catastrophes and of their impact on both local and global communities. Hollywood has reflected this new consciousness by producing numerous disaster movies in recent years, several of which have become blockbusters.

Christof Mauch is the chair of North American history and transatlantic relations at the Amerika-Institut of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich, Germany. Christian Pfister is professor of economic, social, and environmental history at the Institute of History, University of Bern, in Bern, Switzerland.