History is a “vehicle to understand how societies engender, respond to, and recover from disasters” (p. 171). This is one of many insights offered in "Disasters and History" and the authors make a convincing case for how disaster scholarship can be enriched by the complexities, understandings and nuances that historical research and context can provide. One premise of the book is that history can be a laboratory in which an analysis of past disasters and responses can be used to “empirically test hypotheses” that may improve current responses in disaster policy and management (p. 173). As an historian working in the disasters space, I found this book invigorating as it validated the work that historians have been doing in Australia and New Zealand and emphasises the important insights that history can bring to the field of disasters studies.1 A disaster’s cause, impact and recovery are rooted in historical antecedents. The event can expose otherwise hidden societal features and fissures and can be an agent of historical change (p. 178).

The book begins with a detailed discussion of interpretative frameworks, concepts and methodological approaches, distilling an overview of disaster studies into 70 pages. While this may sound dry, it was written with a light touch and interwoven with interesting examples and case studies to emphasise points and guide the reader. This book provides a useful reference tool that collates this information in one place as it synthesises the different approaches and application of history to provide a clear explanation of what historians and disaster scholars do and how they can work together. This discussion will be valuable for current scholars and those new to the field.

For non-historians the book will highlight the craft of historical research as it identifies the need to embrace eclectic sources and read against the grain to find evidence to fill gaps in historical knowledge and provide critique and context. Historians of disaster can use records to ask new questions, for example mortality records may indicate plague, while low crop yield data can reflect prolonged drought. Historians, as the authors explain, are trained to deal with multiple sources (oral and written), varying interpretations and debates over time, the strengths and limitations of data and can also draw on paleoclimate data (ice cores), archaeological finds (skeletons) and biological records (tree rings) to better understand disasters (p. 55).

The next section explains the need to recognise pre-existing conditions in disaster studies. These events do not happen in isolation and historians can look beyond the facts of the single event, and sometimes a pre-occupation with the aftermath of the disaster, to provide a context. Disasters reflect geography, climate, socio-political factors, the economy or technological developments and all create the existing levels of disaster vulnerability. Disaster scholarship has long acknowledged the human dimension of disasters2 and this book reveals numerous anthropogenic causal factors at an individual, regional and global scale (for example marital status, rainfall or the Cold War), again peppered with interesting examples.

Themes of memory aiding or impeding resilience, path dependency, the role of experts, technology, scapegoating and blame — ideas familiar to disaster scholars as factors that underpin human responses to disasters — provide the structure for the book’s next section that deals with constraints for recovery. The same pre-existing conditions that can be causal factors and shape the impact of a disaster, can also determine whether the outcome will be recovery, stagnation or decline (the three most likely outcomes identified on p. 145). While history should avoid determinism, these insights into past events may help assist future disaster policies and improve outcomes, as disaster managers may learn from previous mistakes or successes. History and past outcomes, the authors argue, should not be relegated to a preamble for a broader discussion of the event but should be used as a diagnostic tool that can be used to aid recovery (p. 171).

A compelling argument is made for disaster scholars and historians to be more attune to the environment. While cautious not to over-emphasise the point, by way of example the authors suggest that the prevailing environmental conditions of famine contributed to 17th century Scottish witchcraft trials and drought exacerbated social disruption in 19th Century Zulu Kingdoms when rainmakers were killed (p. 139). But environmental history must also be attune to the contextual socio-economic, cultural and political factors that are intrinsically interconnected with disasters. Historians, the authors note, are well positioned to add these layers to disaster studies as they unravel the “intimate relationships between the disaster and its particular social, temporal and geographical context” (p. 183). Environmental historians acknowledge the value of studying disasters as a way of exploring relationships between the human and non-human world, and the agency of both.

The book identifies that poverty and inequality increase vulnerability to disasters and impede the processes of recovery. The authors suggest that much more research can occur into vulnerability at the micro level, suggesting that inequality may be more significant than poverty (p. 97). Here they engage with ideas of social justice and disasters, which is an expanding field of research. Historical research can also explore other variables in vulnerability and recovery and could consider gender, age and culture, factors that are often the subjects of social historians and human geographers. In chapter seven, the book maps out future avenues for further research that can address the Anthropocene, climate change and capitalism. If, as Ulrick Beck claimed, we are now living in a ‘Risk Society’,3 the age when disasters are inevitable, then disaster scholarship is gaining urgency and clearly there is much that can be done by historians in this field. As this book’s title suggests, the history of past vulnerabilities and resilience should be recognised in disaster scholarship and history deserves elevation in the list of mainstream discourses that can contribute to knowledge (p. 169). The authors advocate greater multi-disciplinarity in future scholarship with historians working with climatologists, scientists, social scientists and others to enhance our understanding of disasters.

The book has been extensively researched, as indicated by the vast reference list that reflects the writers’ scholarship. The list provides an invaluable bibliographical resource for historians working within this field. Another strength of this book is that despite its multiple authors it reads as one authorial voice. The tone is engaging as it weaves examples of multiple disasters over centuries and geographical spaces throughout the text, which maintains the reader’s attention and increases the book’s wider appeal. Photographs and diagrams are used sparingly but effectively to clarify points. "Disasters and History" makes a timely contribution to disaster scholarship and reaffirms the important contribution that history can, and should, make in future research and disaster management.

Notes:
1 This historiography is provided in Scott McKinnon / Margaret Cook (eds.), Disasters in Australia and New Zealand: Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe, Singapore 2020. A similar approach can be found in De Gruyter’s new book series by Dominik Collet / Christopher Gerrard / Christian Rohr (eds.), Historical Catastrophe Studies/Historische Katastrophenforschung.
2 Gilbert Fowler White, Human Adjustment to Floods: A Geographical Approach to the Flood Problem in the United States, Chicago 1945.
3 Ulrich Beck, Scott Lash and Brian Wynne, Risk Society: Towards and New Modernity, London 1992.