Disaster Research: An Entry For An Encyclopedia
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Date
1991
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
Descriptions of calamities go as far back as the earliest human writings, but systematic empirical studies and theoretical treatises on social aspects of disasters have appeared only in the 20th century. The first publications in both cases were produced by sociologists. Samuel Prince (1920) wrote a doctoral dissertation in sociology at Columbia University in 1920 which examined the social change consequences of a munitions ship explosion in the harbor of Halifax, Canada. Pitirim Sorokin (1942) two decades later wrote Man and Society in Calamity which mostly speculated on how war, revolution, famine, and pestilence might affect the mental processes, behavior, social organizational and cultural life of involved populations.
Keywords
Disaster, communities, sociology