Full Description
Disasters, both natural and man-made, are on the rise. Indeed, a catastrophe of one sort or another seems always to be unfolding somewhere on the planet. We have entered into a veritable Age of Catastrophes which have grown both larger and more complex and now routinely very widespread in scope. The old days of the geographically isolated industrial accidents, of the sinking of a Titanic or the explosion of a Hindenburg, together with their isolated causes and limited effects, are over. Now, disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill or the Japan tsunami and nuclear reactor accident, threaten to engulf large swaths of civilization.
This book analyzes the efforts of Westerners to keep the catastrophes outside, while maintaining order on the inside of society. These efforts are breaking down. Nature and Civilization have become so intertwined they can no longer be separated. Natural disasters, moreover, are becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate from "man-made."
Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The End of Natural Disasters
A Brief Note on Civilization's Loss of Command Over Its Environment
Part I: Disasters of Paleomodernity
1. The Sinking of the Titanic and the Fate of the Mobile City 20
2. On the Hindenburg Disaster and the Technologization of the Soul's Descent to Earth
Part II: Disasters of Neomodernity
3. The Plane Crash at Tenerife: What It Unconceals
4. The Disaster at Bhopal and the Collision of the Biosphere with the Chemosphere
5. Being-Outside-the-World: Thoughts on the Space Shuttle Disasters
6. Back from History: Some Implications Regarding the Accident at Chernobyl
7. The Amsterdam Cargo Plane Crash and the Derailment at Eschede: Parallel Accidents
8 The Aum Shinrikyo Nerve Gas Attacks As an Attempt to Recode Japanese Society
9. The Columbine Shootings and the Absence of Meaning
Part III: Planetary Scale Disasters
10. On the September 11 Terrorist Attacks
11. Hurricane Katrina and the Flooding of New Orleans
12. Sichuan, 2008: The First Man-Made Earthquake
13. A Satellite Collision in the Exosphere: Some Ontological Consequences
14. Tiny Blue Globe: Reflections on the BP Oil Spill
15. On the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Meltdown
Postscript: Global Accident
Appendix: A Disaster Timeline
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
