Disasters and Tragic Events: An Encyclopedia of Catastrophes in American History Available to Purchase

“If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. ‘Nothing in the paper today’, we sigh” (Lord Acton). American history has rarely been measured only by noting it through a string of disasters, catastrophes and tragedies; so, compiling a book about human suffering and the chronic destruction of American infrastructures is a provocative choice. I don't want to call this kind of reading “fun” but it is. Disasters and Tragic Events: An Encyclopedia of Catastrophes in American History is closer to a voyeuristic compendium of guilty pleasures involving natural disasters and cumulative bad behaviour, than...