". . . Penna and Rivers couple delightful exposition, insightful comparative images, and historical anecdotes that together produce some of the finest science writing I've seen. This book not only could be an outstanding text for a course on the subject, but it also would be a fine read for anyone interested in how the earth 'works.'" - Donald Siegel, Syracuse University

"This is an impressive collection, wide ranging in time, place and discipline. The result stimulates new thinking both about history and about the ongoing role of catastrophe in the course of human society -- altogether, an imaginative venture." - Peter Stearns, George Mason University
"Eco-anxiety sometimes makes us exaggerate our power over nature for good and ill. In an important, welcome and riveting collaboration between history and science, Penna and Rivers unfold a minatory drama of disasters - seismic, climatic, pandemic, atmospheric, meteoric - that humans can barely influence, let alone control." - Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, University of Notre Dame
"This skillful record of natural disaster--in climate, epidemics, and earth tremors--shows how society risks further disaster even in planning for safety." - Patrick Manning, University of Pittsburgh
". . . [A]n indispensable introduction for everyone who wants to understand human response to disaster--scientists, disaster planners, historians, and policy-makers, students and senior researchers." - Conevery Bolton Valencius, University of Massachusetts Boston
Natural Disasters in a Global Environment is a trans-national, global and environmental history of natural and man-made disasters. In order to provide students with the clearest and most powerful accounts of each disaster, the authors employ detailed case studies of past and present events; each case study is written as a historical narrative while making use of the most recent scholarship surrounding these cases. Personal narratives, which appear throughout the text, fully engage students in an appreciation of the complexity - and devastation - of these events.