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. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi Introduction (Scott McKinnon, Margaret Cook)....Pages 1-17 Front Matter ....Pages 19-19 “Best Forgotten”: Black Saturday’s Difficult Stories (Peg Fraser)....Pages 21-40 Shaped by Fire: How Bushfires Forged Migrant Environmental Understandings and Memories of Place (Gretel Evans)....Pages 41-58 Placing Memories of Unforgettable Fires: Official Commemoration and Community Recovery After the 2003 ACT Firestorm (Scott McKinnon)....Pages 59-76 Front Matter ....Pages 77-77 “Shaken but Not Stirred”: The Aftermath of Urban Disasters (Margaret Cook)....Pages 79-98 Escaping Water: Living Against Floods in Townsville, North Queensland, from Settlement to 2019 (Rohan Lloyd, Patrick White, Claire Brennan)....Pages 99-117 A Perfect Storm (Ian Townsend)....Pages 119-136 Front Matter ....Pages 137-137 Shallow Fire Literacy Hinders Robust Fire Policy: Black Saturday and Prescribed Burning Debates (Daniel May)....Pages 139-158 Decolonising Settler Hazardscapes of the Waipā: Māori and Pākehā Remembering of Flooding in the Waikato 1900–1950 (Meg Parsons, Karen Fisher)....Pages 159-177 Where the Wild Things Were (Deb Anderson)....Pages 179-197 Back Matter ....Pages 199-202