Natural Disasters and Cultural Change

John Grattan & Robin Torrence (eds.). (2002). London: Routledge.

This volume looks at a very wide range of natural disasters from many different parts of the world, from the flooding experienced by Bronze Age Europeans (Chapter 13) to wreck of the ship Batavia in 1629 off the coast of Australia (Chapter 5). Throughout, emphasis is placed on the adaptability of historical societies in face of devastating natural disaster and the importance of a society’s response and context in determining the short- and long-term effects. Classicists will be particularly interested in Chapter 7 which compares the impact of the eruption on Mount Vesuvius (79 C.E.) on contemporary Roman society with the lasting impact that is still felt in modern times in regard to the long history of tourism to the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum (amongst other places). There is also discussion in Chapter 14 of the eruption in Santorini during the Bronze Age and whether it played a role in the collapse of Minoan palatial societies.

Example quotation

Too often archaeologists and earth scientists have simply assumed that the occurrence of extreme natural events means that they were the prime movers in cultural change without demonstrating that the latter was solely or largely dependent on the former. Consequently, the overall aim of this book is to critically examine the role of extreme environmental events in causing cultural change. The authors have deliberately taken a sceptical point of view and have carefully examined the evidence in order to distinguish between coincidence and dependence.

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