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Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America

Ted Steinberg

3.71 · Rating details · 136 ratings · 9 reviews

As the waters of the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain began to pour into New Orleans, people began asking the big question: could any of this have been avoided? How much of the damage from Hurricane Katrina was bad luck, and how much was poor city planning? Steinberg's Acts of God is a provocative history of natural disasters in the United States. This revised edit ...more

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Paperback, 336 pages

Published July 20th 2006 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published January 1st 2000)

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· 136 ratings · 9 reviews

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Oct 28, 2011 Steve rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, nature, research

I've read a few of Ted Steinberg's books now, and have yet to be disappointed. Acts of God is detailed in its analysis and sharp in its criticisms, and frankly one of the most depressing things I've ever read — the levels of callousness in government, commerce, and media chronicled here, and the tragedies they cause or at least exacerbate are heartbreaking. There's a newer edition of this book, apparently, with an added chapter about hurricane Katrina, but even though I read the original edition ...more

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Sep 12, 2011 Steven Hummer rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: forced-to-read, my-college-textbooks, ebooks

If you're looking for a book that will fascinate you with just unbelievable breath taking amazing tales of humans surviving some of the worst storms, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes Mother Nature can dish out written to be an easy read this is not that book. I read a ton and I always make it a point when I open an ebook or turn on an audio book to start with the preface. The forwards and prefaces can be very interesting especially when they are written by people I like. For example John Stock If you're looking for a book that will fascinate you with just unbelievable breath taking amazing tales of humans surviving some of the worst storms, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes Mother Nature can dish out written to be an easy read this is not that book. I read a ton and I always make it a point when I open an ebook or turn on an audio book to start with the preface. The forwards and prefaces can be very interesting especially when they are written by people I like. For example John Stockton wrote the forward to Larry Miller's book and it was nicely done. With Acts of God however I spent more time using the Kindle's built in dictionary than I did reading the actual preface. Things went on this way for four or five of the nine chapters in the book it was just too wordy. Instead of hearing about amazing stories from survivors the author followed a pattern for every chapter. He would mention a disaster, throw in statistics of the death count, damage costs etc. then talk about the government's failure to respond to offer aid to those in need, go on and on about funding, regulations and building codes, throw in a few pictures and repeat the pattern for 211 pages. Oh and he made sure to take a parting shot at former president Bush on page 199 about Katrina. "There is certainly no question that the Bush Administration bears a great deal of blame for the death penalty that unfolded along the Gulf coast." It did after all slash funding in 2003 for the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project to finance the war in Iraq. The tone of the book was just very doom and gloom. All this aside however and there were a few good points brought up. The author writes about some of the worst places to live and can't understand why people are buying property in some parts of the world mainly Miami Beach. Everyone from residents to hotel chains just couldn't seem to resist despite the obvious hazards to set up shop right on the water. As you can probably guess this had disastrous consequences. Another structure to steer clear of is the mobile home. It seemed almost every chapter noted that mobile homes while very affordable do not afford its residents with the best protection when Mother Nature strikes.
The book also talked about the naming of storms. I thought it was somewhat interesting and highlighted a portion of it. "What better way to demonstrate the evils of liberated womanhood than to give one of nature’s most destructive and uncontrollable forces a female name?"
Chapter 7 was all about the advancements in technology and the ideas that man could predict the weather and then warn the public of imitate danger and so the National Weather Service was born you know it, that computerized voice you can pick up on your transistor radios today. There was a major drawback at the time that the government felt it could not fund or support the project and the book didn't really note any instances where the NWS saved the day. You'll hear about Doppler radar and how it got it's start as well. All in all the few nuggets of information I took away from reading this book just don't outweigh the negatives. The constant need of having to pause and look up words in the dictionary and then having to look up the words in some of those definitions made for a very tedious reading experience.
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Dec 31, 2011 Lance Charnes rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Readers in emergency management, disaster response, zoning, urban planning or land-use policymaking

Shelves: nonfiction-history-us, nonfiction-disaster-studies, reviewed

There's very little "natural" about the human toll of natural disasters -- so goes Ted Steinberg's thesis in Acts of God, a decidedly ironic title. Unrestrained development, clueless urban planning, greed and class warfare conspire to place mostly poor and powerless people in the path of entirely predictable catastrophe.

Steinberg reviews a century of American disasters, starting with the ill-remembered Charleston earthquake of 1886 and proceeding through Hurricane Andrew and the Chicago heat wav ...more

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Jan 08, 2010 Tippy rated it liked it

Shelves: economics, history, meteorology, natural-disaster, politics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book started off pretty slow, but then picked up big time. By the end all I could think was "What the fuck" and "how did I not know about this?" This book goes through building in known dangerous areas, subsidizing building in dangerous areas and government insurance for those building/living in dangerous areas, the development of land that protects our coasts (i.e. mangrove swamps and wetlands), the forgetfulness of past natural disasters and the continual relaxing of safety codes and the ...more

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Jan 29, 2014 Morrigan rated it liked it

A good argument regarding what is a "natural disaster". The question being that if we build our homes and business in flood plains, seismic areas, tornado alley's and then we live in mobile homes in these areas how natural is that disaster? The earth does what it does and if we build there or make those areas the only affordable place to live the disaster part is our fault. ...more

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Sep 21, 2015 Craig rated it it was amazing

damning evidence against deregulation and privatization in the sphere of emergency management

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Sep 05, 2011 Merinda Brayfield rated it liked it

Shelves: history

The book starts out slow, then gains moment until it turns into a roaring condemnation of the way disaster is handled in America.

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Jan 27, 2008 Erik Loomis rated it it was amazing

I am developing half a course around this book if that gives you any idea how good it is. Steinberg looks at so-called natural disasters and who is effected by them. Awesome.

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