Introduction: Witness to Disaster: Comparative Histories of Earthquake Science and Response

Abstract

For historians of science, earthquakes may well have an air of the exotic. Often terrifying, apparently unpredictable, and arguably even more deadly today than in a pre-industrial age, they are not a phenomenon against which scientific progress is easy to gauge. Yet precisely because seismic forces seem so uncanny, even demonic, naturalizing them has been one of the most tantalizing and enduring challenges of modern science. Earthquakes have repeatedly shaken not just human edifices but the foundations of human knowledge. They have been known to cast doubt on divine providence, on the predictive ability of the sciences, and on the capacity of the human mind to learn from an experience of sheer terror. Most recently, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of 2011 have forced nuclear experts around the world to confront the limits of their knowledge and the vulnerability of their best-laid plans.

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