Disasters and History: The Vulnerability and Resilience of Past Societies

Disasters and History offers the first comprehensive historical overview of hazards and disasters. Drawing on a range of case studies, including the Black Death, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 and the Fukushima disaster, the authors examine how societies dealt with shocks and hazards and their potentially disastrous outcomes. They reveal the ways in which the consequences and outcomes of these disasters varied widely not only between societies but also within the same societies according to social groups, ethnicity and gender. They also demonstrate how studying past disasters, including earthquakes, droughts, floods and epidemics, can provide a lens through which to understand the social, economic and political functioning of past societies and reveal features of a society which may otherwise remain hidden from view. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Bas van Bavel is Distinguished Professor of Transitions of Economy and Society at Utrecht University.

Daniel R. Curtis is Associate Professor in the School of History, Culture and Communication at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Jessica Dijkman is Assistant Professor in Economic and Social History at Utrecht University.

Matthew Hannaford is a Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Lincoln.

Maïka de Keyzer is a Lecturer in Socio-Economic and Environmental Pre-Modern History at KU Leuven.