The Age of Catastrophe: Disaster and Humanity in Modern Times

by John David Ebert

Disasters, both natural and man-made, are on the rise. Indeed, a catastrophe of one sort or another seems always to be unfolding somewhere on the planet. We have entered into a veritable Age of Catastrophes which have grown both larger and more complex and now routinely very widespread in scope. The old days of the geographically isolated industrial accidents, of the sinking of a Titanic or the explosion of a Hindenburg , together with their isolated causes and limited effects, are over. Now, disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill or the Japan tsunami and nuclear reactor accident, threaten to engulf large swaths of civilization. This book analyzes the efforts of Westerners to keep the catastrophes outside , while maintaining order on the inside of society. These efforts are breaking down. Nature and Civilization have become so intertwined they can no longer be separated. Natural disasters, moreover, are becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate from "man-made." Instructors considering this book for use in a course may .

Genres: Philosophy, History, Sociology, Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2012

About the author

John David Ebert is a cultural critic and the author of 26 books. He has a series of videos and audio albums on various philosophers posted on YouTube, Google Play and two websites: cinemadiscourse.com and cultural-discourse.com.

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ebert comes by some strange conclusions, but are convincing. I took 2 stars away because Ebert is also so eager to tell us the references he has in mind when he is describing something, constantly breaking the immersion. Very irritating problem that pervades much of his work.

[Ikkyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Supplement this with Black Swan by Nassim Taleb

[Rigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Book makes you want to buy real estate in Greenland.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book that I found, for lack of a better word, "problematic".

I came to John and this book through his fantastic podcast that he does with Darryl Cooper "The decline of the west" podcast.

I asked him which one of his books he recommends, and he said I should read this one.

The book is basically an application of several sociological/philosophical/psychological and even religious theories over our modern state of technology and its failures(some thinkers he mentions alot are Virilio, Heidegger, Sloterdijk, which are thinkers who I have yet to read).

The overall idea is pretty neat, and if you are one of those people who actually read and or want to read books of the thinkers mentioned above, then you should consider this book as a side addition, although it comes with its problems.

The first problem I had with this book is that John pretty much assumes a worst case scenario with these disasters(or atleast, his tone and analysis point to that way of thinking), I should simply say that while it seems that tech, capitalism and industry is causing alot of disasters, it doesn't mean that we can't in any way try to counter these forces, checks and balances can be formed, nuclear accidents might be terrible but it doesn't mean that they have to be so numerous for it to become a half-common phenomenon that will change our way of thinking.

My second problem with the book is John's sort of elitism that he has the ultimate truth.
this is best shown in his columbine chapter, where he writes that the investigators are not truly fit for the job because they "know little of cosmology, religion, mythology or philosophy", I know John is a smart cookie, but if he is going to be all for trusting experts for his other chapters, why is he suddenly so straight-up against the explanation of these EXPERTS of presumably criminology and psychology? he did not provide a good enough reason for this, however I think that the analysis isn't worthless, since we have seen this act of school shooting happen again and again, and not all of these shooters were psychos.

My third problem with the book, although I do not count this as a minus in rating, is the lack of a chapter about the coming possible disaster of antibiotic resistance and the possible insane mega-outbreaks of germs that it might cause.

anyways, I still give this a solid 3 stars, it taught me alot about all sorts of theories, the ideas are sound although a bit inflated in my opinion, and I think that I'll try another of John's books in the future.

[Debarun · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ebert is a good writer.
But nothing can salvage him from Heideggerean and Deleuzean fuckery in this book.

[Kurt]

A great book about thing to come by a highly underrated author