Description: Rethinking American Disasters is a pathbreaking collection of essays on hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, and other calamities in the United States and British colonial America over four centuries. Proceeding from the premise that there is no such thing as a "natural" disaster, the collection invites readers to consider disasters and their aftermaths as artifacts of and vantage points onto their historical contexts.
Brief description: Matthew Mulcahy has written or cowritten several books and articles about natural disasters in colonial British America, including Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624-1783.
Review Quotes: "The essays deploy methods and approaches from this fertile interdisciplinary field to produce rich case studies that weave together social, cultural, environmental, and political analysis. . . . This volume of well-written essays provides a useful and appealing introduction to the field of historical disaster studies with important lessons for today, as we grapple with the mounting social and ecological hazards of the Anthropocene."--Journal of American History