Disaster Government

Atoms and Ashes recounts the dramatic history of nuclear accidents that have dogged the industry in its military and civil incarnations since the 1950s. Through the stories of six terrifying major incidents—Bikini Atoll, Kyshtym, Windscale, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima—Cold War expert Serhii Plokhy explores the risks of nuclear power, both for military and peaceful purposes, while offering a vivid account of how individuals and governments make decisions under extraordinary circumstances.

At 5:12 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco was struck by one of the worst earthquakes in history, instantly killing hundreds. This watershed event in American history has never before been told with the richness of historical detail and insight that our foremost historian of fire, Dennis Smith, brings to it in San Francisco Is Burning. Smith cinematically recounts this terrible tragedy through the stories of the people who lived through those terrible days...

The rise of the new far right has left the world grappling with a profound misunderstanding. While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic leaders, the true peril lies elsewhere. Defeating these people will not stem the tide driving them forward. They are merely the embodiment of profound forces that are rarely understood. Propelled through the vast networks of social media and fueled by far-right influencers, enthralled by images of disaster and fantasies of doom, they have emerged from a reservoir of societal despair, fear, and isolation.

In her groundbreaking reporting, Naomi Klein introduced the term "disaster capitalism." Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic "shock treatment," losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's free market economic revolution.

A decade after the Cold War, a violent explosion sent the Russian submarine Kursk to the bottom of the Barents Sea. The Russians claimed an outdated torpedo caused the incident and refused help from the West while 23 survivors died before they could be rescued. When Russian naval officers revealed evidence of a collision with a US spy sub, Vladimir Putin squelched the allegations and fired the officers. In Spies of the Deep, W. Craig Reed shatters the lies told by both Russian and US officials and exposes several shocking truths.

Immediately after two hijacked jets struck the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Dennis Smith volunteered in the rescue effort. Having spent his career as both a respected writer and a member of one of the city's busiest firehouses, Smith became determined to use his unique background to tell the story of the disaster and its aftermath with the empathy and understanding that only an insider could bring to it. In this audio memoir, he has collected astonishing first-person testimony.

An energizing case for hope about the climate comes from Rebecca Solnit, called “the voice of the resistance” by the New York Times, and climate activist Thelma Young Lutunatabua, along with a chorus of voices calling on us to rise to the moment. Not Too Late is the book for anyone who is despondent, defeatist, or unsure about climate change and seeking answers. As the contributors to this volume make clear, the future will be decided by whether we act in the present—and we must act to counter institutional inertia, fossil fuel interests, and political obduracy. T

Examining a series of El Niño-induced droughts and the famines that they spawned around the globe in the last third of the 19th century, Mike Davis discloses the intimate, baleful relationship between imperial arrogance and natural incident that combined to produce some of the worst tragedies in human history. Late Victorian Holocausts focuses on three zones of drought and subsequent famine: India, Northern China, and Northeastern Brazil.

Warnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies, the US economy, and possibly the fate of civilization. In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters, but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right?

On Thursday, July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index, which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body, would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a "social autopsy," examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been.

In Disunited Nations, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan presents a series of counterintuitive arguments about the future of a world where trade agreements are coming apart and international institutions are losing their power. Germany will decline as the most powerful country in Europe, with France taking its place. Every country should prepare for the collapse of China, not North Korea. We are already seeing, as Zeihan predicts, a shift in outlook on the Middle East: it is no longer Iran that is the region’s most dangerous threat, but Saudi Arabia.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, shares what he has learnt in more than a decade of studying climate change and investing in innovations to address climate problems. He explains how the world can work to build the tools it needs to get to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions - investing in research, inventing new technologies and deploying them quickly at a large scale. Gates is optimistic that the world can prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event reverberating even today. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself.

The future may still be unpredictable, but nowadays, disasters are not. We live in a time of constant, consistent catastrophe, where things more often go wrong than they go right. So why do we still fumble when disaster hits? Why are we always one step behind? In The Devil Never Sleeps, Juliette Kayyem lays the groundwork for a new approach to dealing with disasters.

In each of his books, James Bradley has exposed the hidden truths behind America's engagement in Asia. Now comes his most engrossing work yet. Beginning in the 1850s, Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans who made their fortunes in the China opium trade. As they - good Christians all - profitably addicted millions, American missionaries arrived, promising salvation for those who adopted Western ways.

This journalistic exploration of Donald Trump takes readers behind the scenes to discover the Trump you may not have known. Simply put, this unbiased biography is "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!"

In the rubble of Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans and ultrarich "Puertopians" are locked in a pitched struggle over how to remake the island. In this vital and startling investigation, The New York Times best-selling author and activist Naomi Klein uncovers how the forces of shock politics and disaster capitalism seek to undermine the nation's radical, resilient vision for a just recovery.

From national best-selling author and retired Navy SEAL Clint Emerson comes the essential guide for surviving today's emergencies - from navigating in the wild to staying alive in any disaster. These 100 skills, adapted for civilians from actual field experiences of Special Forces operations, offer a complete hands-on and practical guide to help you survive in the wild no matter the climate or terrain, be prepared for any crisis, and have the critical life-saving knowledge for staying safe in any hostile environment or disaster.

In Your Government Failed You, Clarke looks at why failures have continued and how America and the world can succeed against the terrorists. But Clarke goes beyond terrorism to examine the recurring U.S. government disasters. Despite the lessons of Vietnam, we've gotten involved in Iraq. Drawing on his 30 years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and Intelligence Community, Clarke discovers patterns in the failure and suggests ways to stop the cycle.

On the morning of April 26, 1986, Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy draws on new sources to tell the dramatic stories of the firefighters, scientists, and soldiers who heroically extinguished the nuclear inferno. He lays bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry....