A Paradise Built in Hell

[Dave Monroe]

A Paradise Built in Hell
The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster
Rebecca Solnit - Author
$27.95
Book: Hardcover | 5.98 x 9.01in | 368 pages | ISBN 9780670021079 | 20
Aug 2009 | Viking Adult | 18 - AND UP


A startling investigation of what people do in disasters and why it matters

Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster— whether manmade or
natural—people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave?
What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins
and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal
about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities?

In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit
explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906
earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up
Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and
Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws
people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social
possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths
and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a
timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work
consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural
histories.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670021079,00.html?A_Paradise_Built_in_Hell_Rebecca_Solnit

Cf. ...

"A pose I found congenial in those days--fairly common, I hope, among
pre-adults--was that of somber glee at any idea of mass destuction or
decline.  The modern political thriller genre, in fact, has been known
to cash in on such visions of death made large-scale or glamorous."
(SL, "Intro," p. 13)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0211&msg=72984