(Image: Reaktion Books)
NOT so much “The end is nigh”, more “The end has been nigh many times”. Henrik Svensen tackles the topic of how natural disasters shape human society. Understandably, the interplay between religion and science is a prominent theme. He describes, for instance, how 18th-century philosophers used the destruction of Lisbon by an earthquake and tsunami in 1755 to debunk divine providence; yet the 1906 San Francisco quake is presented as a catalyst for Pentecostal revival in Los Angeles. In fact, he says, the catholic church came up with the concept of natural disasters to describe the…
