Review : Doom and gloom

Worried about your pension scheme or the rising price of petrol? Reading
World Disasters Report 1997 will help put things in perspective. It’s
interesting on the hows and whys of effective humanitarian aid, but the real
clout is in neat columns of gloomy statistics coldly illuminating the sheer
scale of human suffering. Impossible to criticise and difficult to ignore.
Published by OUP, £15.99, ISBN 0198292902.