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CRED DISASTER! FINDER

Books on natural, and man-made disasters

Disaster Compendiums  —  Fires  —  Hurricane, Tornados, and Floods  — 
Plagues, Ecological, and Industrial  —  Famine, Dust Storms, and Mining  — 
Shark Attacks, Heat Waves, and Cold  —  Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis

Recommended titles
Links lead to Amazon.com for more details, price, and purchase info.

- Plague, and Pandemics -

America's Forgotten Pandemic : The Influenza of 1918 by Alfred W. Crosby Cambridge University Press, 1990. 351pp.     "Between August 1918 and March 1919 the Spanish influenza spread worldwide claiming over 25 million lives, more people than perished in the fighting of the First World War. It proved fatal to at least a half-million Americans. Yet, the Spanish flu pandemic is largely forgotten today. In this vivid narrative, Alfred W. Crosby recounts the course of the pandemic during the panic-striken months of 1918 and 1919, measures its impact on American society, and probes the curious loss of national memory of this cataclysmic event. This edition contains a new Preface. Originally published in 1976. " --book description Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Bari Kolata Touchstone Books, 2001. 352pp.     "...Gina Kolata's engrossing Flu, a fascinating look at the 1918 epidemic that wiped out around 40 million people in less than a year and afflicted more than one of every four Americans. This tragedy, just on the heels of World War I and far more deadly, so traumatized the survivors that few would talk about it afterward. ... How could this disease, now almost trivial to healthy young people, have become so virulent? The answer is complex, invoking epidemiology, immunology, and even psychology, but Kolata cuts a swath through medical papers and statistical reports to tell a story of an out-of-control virus exploiting an exhausted world on the brink of transition into modern society. Through letters, interviews, and news reports, she pieces together a cautionary tale that captures the horror of a devastating illness. " --Amazon.com

The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco
by Marilyn Chase
Random House, 2003. 288pp.

"In 1900, a ship called the Australia docked in San Francisco, carrying infected rats that launched a plague epidemic in the city, which raged sporadically for five years before it was subdued. Chase, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, argues in this engaging narrative that social, cultural and psychological issues prevented public health officials from curtailing the outbreak. ... Avoiding pedantry and tediousness, Chase tells a story that highlights the true nature of epidemics-and how employing a combination of acceptance, perseverance and diplomacy are key to solving them. As she notes in her final pages, the parallels with the AIDS crisis are striking, and the lessons worth salting away for any future epidemics. " --Publishers Weekly

Bring Out Your Dead: The Great Plague of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia in 1793
by J. H. Powell
University of Pennsylvania Press, reprint 1993. 304pp.

"This classic work, originally published in 1949, has been made available again with a new introduction to mark the 200th anniversary of the yellow fever plague in Philadelphia. Today, as outbreaks of infectious diseases continue to confound the medicla community worldwide, this account of one city's struggle in the face of overwhelming odds has particular resonance." --book description

- Ecological, Environmental, and Industrial Calamities -

A Plague of Frogs: Unraveling an Environmental Mystery
by William Souder
Univ of Minnesota Press, reprint 2002. 320pp.

"The world's frogs are disappearing, and frog deformities are proliferating--a potential warning sign of a looming, environmentally triggered human health disaster. That's the message of this shocking and important report from journalist Souder, who broke this story in the Washington Post after a group of Minnesota schoolchildren found abnormal frogs with horribly deformed, extra or missing limbs in a farm pond in 1995. ... Souder, who visited research labs, interviewed biologists and hunted frogs across the country, ranks pesticides as the prime suspect. ... Souder's labyrinthine investigation also impartially reviews rival theories blaming frog deformities on parasites, disease, predation, etc.... Because frogs are considered a sentinel species--a kind of biological early-warning system of environmental imbalance--Souder's intriguing scientific detective story, though inconclusive, deserves a wide readership, and his low-keyed, cautious approach adds to its impact" --Publishers Weekly

Chernobyl Legacy
by Paul Fusco, Magdalena Caris
de.MO, 2001. 228pp.

"Chernobyl Legacy bears witness to the present-day effects of the horrific nuclear accident that took place in the Ukraine in 1986. More than fifteen years following the disaster, searing images documenting the effects of this tragedy are central to the theme of the book--the people affected by Chernobyl. With a foreword by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and introduction by actor and United Nations Messenger of Peace, Michael Douglas, this book presents a photographic essay of the events during and after April 25, 1986. It also offers a historical background, definitions and facts. " --book description

The Warning: Accident at Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Omen for the Age of Terror
by Mike Gray, Ira Rosen
W.W. Norton & Company, reissue 2003. 304pp.

Five Past Midnight in Bhopal
by Dominique Lapierre, Javier Moro
Warner Books, 2002. 448pp.

"... this latest project, co-written with Spanish travel writer and journalist Moro (The Jaipur Foot), is part historical documentation and part dramatization, a modern fable depicting the communities that weathered the effects of early globalization in India. After DDT was banned in 1973, American chemical giant Union Carbide began to push Sevin, a pesticide that calls for highly toxic and unstable ingredients in its production. They built a processing plant in Bhopal, India, where a combination of poor supervision and penny-pinching tactics eventually led to the world's worst industrial disaster: on December 3, 1984, the plant sprung a leak during routine maintenance procedures. The resulting noxious vapors killed between 16,000 and 30,000 and left 500,000 permanently injured. As Lapierre and Moro recount the disaster, they weave in the story of a family of peasants forced to leave their farmland and move to the Bhopal region, where their fate intersected tragically with that of the plant. ... " --Publishers Weekly

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