A Paradise Built in Hell
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Average rating4
A startling investigation ofwhat people do in disastersand why it mattersWhy is it that in the aftermath of a disaster—whether manmade or natural—people suddenlybecome altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makesthe newfound communities and purpose many findin the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? Andwhat does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet socialdesires and possibilities?In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning authorRebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, lookingat major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in SanFrancisco through the 1917 explosion that tore upHalifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake,9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Sheexamines how disaster throws people into a temporaryutopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities,as well as looking at the cost of the widespread mythsand rarer real cases of social deterioration during...
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Abandoned, p.90. Stories of disasters bringing out the best in us. Cherrypicked anecdotes demonstrating how wonderful and kumbaya it is when disasters happen and survivors organically unite to provide mutual assistance, rejecting payment, everyone acting out of pure unselfish love; then how horrible it is when authorities come in and ruin everything. This was reading more like a utopian manifesto than anything nuanced, informative, or thoughtful. I flipped ahead, got the same vibe, am moving on to my next book.
