MACMILLAN Disasters in Australia and New Zealand: Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe

Disasters in Australia and New Zealand brings together a collection of essays on the history of disasters in both countries. Leading experts provide a timely interrogation of long-held assumptions about the impacts of bushfires, floods, cyclones and earthquakes, exploring the blurred line between nature and culture, asking what are the anthropogenic causes of ‘natural’ disasters? How have disasters been remembered or forgotten? And how have societies over generations responded to or understood disaster? As climate change escalates disaster risk in Australia, New Zealand and around the world, these questions have assumed greater urgency. This unique collection poses a challenge to learn from past experiences and to implement behavioural and policy change. Rich in oral history and archival research, Disasters in Australia and New Zealand offers practical and illuminating insights that will appeal to historians and disaster scholars across multiple disciplines. Review “This important book is not only about the histories of disasters but also about disaster history, about the special challenges of writing historically about communities in crisis, even while the memories and debates are still volatile.  As well as being rich with the words of witnesses, it showcases the best new scholarship in the field, bringing together work on bushfire, floods, cyclones and earthquakes.  Nature and culture cannot be teased apart, and histories of disaster expose that amalgam for intelligent and urgent scrutiny.” (Emeritus Professor Tom Griffiths, Australian National University) “This collection shows how grounding disaster research in time and space is essential to inform scholarship as well as policy and action to reduce risk. The vivid and incisive case studies by local historians and geographers constitute a significant step towards advancing our international agenda to promote genuine and sound disaster studies.” (Professor JC Gaillard, University of Auckland, New Zealand) From the Back Cover Disasters in Australia and New Zealand brings together a collection of essays on the history of disasters in both countries. Leading experts provide a timely interrogation of long-held assumptions about the impacts of bushfires, floods, cyclones and earthquakes, exploring the blurred line between nature and culture, asking what are the anthropogenic causes of ‘natural’ disasters? How have disasters been remembered or forgotten? And how have societies over generations responded to or understood disaster? As climate change escalates disaster risk in Australia, New Zealand and around the world, these questions have assumed greater urgency. This unique collection poses a challenge to learn from past experiences and to implement behavioural and policy change. Rich in oral history and archival research,  Disasters in Australia and New Zealand offers practical and illuminating insights that will appeal to historians and disaster scholars across multiple disciplines. About the Author Dr Scott McKinnon is a Vice Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Wollongong. He is a historian and geographer with a research background in disasters research, geographies of memory, and histories and geographies of sexuality. Scott is the author of Gay Men at the Movies: Cinema, memory and the history of a gay male community (2016). Dr Margaret Cook is a Lecturer in History at the University of the Sunshine Coast and Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe University and University of Queensland. A freelance historian for many years, her research interests include disasters, water, climate and the cotton industry. Margaret is the author of A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods (2019).