INTRO:
People struggle to make “actual risks of the world around them manageable” (5)
How “to make sense of disasters in the terms available and comfortable” to people? (5)
Think of disasters in terms of:
“impact . . . on local cultures”
“disruption and transformation of familiar patterns”
“responses of professional communities and organizational cultures”
“claims of expertise and authority”
“reception and representation . . . by broader interpretive communities”
CHAPTER 1:
“[N]ew scientists and their followers believed that God had created an orderly universe in which events such as hurricanes followed fixed patterns and processes discernible by humans. Revealing the logic and the mechanistic order of the natural world bore witness to the power and glory of God . . .” (21).
Importance of the physical, e.g., houses, fields, fences, to social order, to possession. Importance of slave property economically and to safety
Adaptation of colonials, e.g., use of brick and stone, height of buildings, “hurricane houses,” “storm towers” for slaves, regulation of trade, changes in shipping schedules, settlement areas, abandonment of threatened areas
Over time, recognition “that the storms had some positive environmental consequences” (30)
“Hurricanes did not stop the development of colonies in the Great Cariggean, but they did help shape the type of society that developed there” (31).
CHAPTER 2:
“‘[H]uman groups and institutions play a far more active role iin the creation of destructive agents and circumstances than is usually imagined or portrayed’. . . .[B]laming ‘nature’ for the consequent ‘disaster’ serves t absolve the social order . . .” (40) [quoting Anthony Oliver-Smith]
“[D]isasters are conjunctions between the social and the natural . . .” (41):
Hessian fly (wheat parasite) [natural] + volcanic dust leading to unusually long/cold winter (and reduced deer population due to hungry wolves) & cold/late spring leading to late planting & short growing season [natural] & to slaughter of livestock for food (leading to fewer for plowing)+ crop decisions (e.g., overplanting)+ reduced provisions in some areas due to market decisions to import/export [social]+ movement of settlers into areas of shortages [social] + “alarmist” press reports which led to higher prices & hoarding [social] = DEARTH (widespread, severe hunger with few deaths)
http://disasters.ferrellhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/week-3-September-7-Monday.pdf
