An introduction to hazards, human vulnerability and disaster, paying particular attention to the more severe or novel risks and disaster that affect the general public. The book is split into two parts, the first of which gives an overview of the field of risk and disaster in terms of three perspectives: hazards perspective; vulnerability perspective and the active perspective. The second part illustrates and develops these ideas in relation to some of the more severe dangers and disasters of the twentieth century, for example, earthquake risk, cities at risk and the civil disasters of war.

Kenneth Hewitt

• APPROACHES TO RISK AND DISASTER: Introduction: Danger and ModernityRisk and Damaging Events
• The Geographicalness of Disaster
• Natural Hazards
• Technological Hazards
• Social Hazards: Violence and the Disasters of War
• Vulnerability Perspectives: The Human Ecology of Endangerment
• Active Perspectives: Responses to Disaster and Adjustments to Risks
• COMMUNITIES AT RISK, PLACES OF DISASTER: 'Unnatural' Disasters: The Case of Earthquake Hazards
• Contexts of Risk: Mountain Land Hazards and Vulnerabilities
• Risks in the City
• Place Annihilation: Air War and the Vulnerability of Cities
• Holocaust: Genocide and Geographical Calamity Concluding Remarks: the perspective of ideas