Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Disasters in Australia and New Zealand

Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Editors:
  1. Scott McKinnon

    1. Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Margaret Cook

    1. School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia

    View editor publications

    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Offers the first edited collection of scholarly research on disaster history in Australia and New Zealand

  • Responds to a growing interest in disaster histories prompted by a changing climate

  • Incorporates cutting edge research in the field undertaken by established and emerging scholars

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Scott McKinnon, Margaret Cook
    Pages 1-17

  4. Human Understandings of Disaster

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 77-77
      Download chapter PDF

    2. “Shaken but Not Stirred”: The Aftermath of Urban Disasters

      • Margaret Cook
      Pages 79-98

    3. Escaping Water: Living Against Floods in Townsville, North Queensland, from Settlement to 2019

      • Rohan Lloyd, Patrick White, Claire Brennan
      Pages 99-117

    4. A Perfect Storm

      • Ian Townsend
      Pages 119-136

  6. Back Matter

    Pages 199-202
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

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.

Reviews

“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)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    Scott McKinnon

  • School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Australia

    Margaret Cook

About the editors

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).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Disasters in Australia and New Zealand

  • Book Subtitle: Historical Approaches to Understanding Catastrophe

  • Editors: Scott McKinnon, Margaret Cook

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4382-1

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-981-15-4381-4Published: 08 July 2020

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-981-15-4384-5Published: 08 July 2021

  • eBook ISBN: 978-981-15-4382-1Published: 07 July 2020

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 202

  • Number of Illustrations: 11 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Human Geography, Oral History, Environmental Geography

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation