Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Dyl’s analysis reveals the ways in which cultural, political, and economic pressures influence the nature of the built environment, even in the context of environmental hazards. . . . These narratives of survival and resistance complicate tidy Progressive-era stories of urban reform and revitalization, revealing heterogeneous experiences of disaster and remaking within the city. . . . Dyl’s work enlivens historical actors typically removed from narratives of this urban revitalization [and] asks provocative questions about how we retell narratives of past disasters, account for natural processes in our present lives, and plan for our futures in these sites."
-- Shari Wilcox * Edge Effects *
"Seismic City is a landmark in the relatively new field of disaster studies...It makes for a gripping read."
* California History *
"Seismic City offers an important contribution to the history of San Francisco by interweaving nature, human actions, and the built environment."
* H-Environment *
"The strength of Dyl’s work stems from her consideration of natural disasters as something very different from exceptional or singular occurrences."
* Planning Perspectives *
"environmental history delivers a unique portrait of the 1906 disaster."
* Pacific Historical Review *
"Seismic City is a superb environmental history of most well-known disasters of a popular western city."
* New Mexico Historical Review *
Table of ContentsForeword / Paul S. Sutter
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Making Land, Making a City
2. Catastrophe and Its Interpretations
3. Bread Lines and Earthquake Cottages
4. Rebuilding and the Politics of Place
5. Disaster Capitalism in the Streets
6. Plague, Rats, and Undesirable Nature
7. Symbolic Recovery and the Legacies of Disaster
Conclusion
Notes
Manuscript Collections
Index
