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California Earthquakes:

Science, Risk, and the Politics of Hazard Mitigation

ISBN-13: 9780801865961
Publisher: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Imprint: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
By Carl-Henry Geschwind
Price: AUD $120.00
Stock: 0 in stock
Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
Local release date: 14/06/2001
Format: Hardback 352 pages Weight: 0g
Categories: History of science [PDX]

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In 1906, after an earthquake wiped out much of San Francisco, leading California officials and scientists described the disaster as a one-time occurrence and assured the public that it had nothing to worry about. California Earthquakes explains how, over time, this attitude changed, and Californians came to accept earthquakes as a significant threat, as well as to understand how science and technology could reduce this threat. Carl-Henry Geschwind tells the story of the small group of scientists and engineers who--in tension with real estate speculators and other pro-growth forces, private and public--developed the scientific and political infrastructure necessary to implement greater earthquake awareness. Through their political connections, these reformers succeeded in building a state apparatus in which regulators could work together with scientists and engineers to reduce earthquake hazards. Geschwind details the conflicts among scientists and engineers about how best to reduce these risks, and he outlines the dramatic twentieth-century advances in our understanding of earthquakes--their causes and how we can try to prepare for them. Tracing the history of seismology and the rise of the regulatory state and of environmental awareness, California Earthquakes tells how earthquake-hazard management came about, why some groups assisted and others fought it, and how scientists and engineers helped shape it.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Reactions to the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

Chapter 2: Setting Up a Scientific Infrastructure - Seismology California Style, 1910-1925

Chapter 3: Bailey Willis and the Promotion of Earthquake Safety in the Mid-1920s

Chapter 4: Engineering a Regulatory-State Apparatus - Seismic Safety in the 1930s

Chapter 5: Earthquake Experts and the Cold War State

Chapter 6: New Initiatives for Earthquake Preparedness, 1964-1971

Chapter 7: Seismic Politics - Responses to the San Fernando Earthquake of 1971

Chapter 8: Pushing Prediction - Establishment of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program

Chapter 9: The Regulatory-State Apparatus in Action

Abbreviations

Notes

Essay on Sources

Index

""Well written, tightly structured, and carefully researched.""

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California Earthquakes:

Science, Risk, and the Politics of Hazard Mitigation