Reconstructing Resilient Communities after the Wenchuan Earthquake: Disaster Recovery in China looks at the changes in Chinese society following the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan from various perspectives ranging from reconstruction policy, mental care for disaster victims, tourism in disaster areas, ethnic minorities, and disaster prevention education. The Wenchuan Earthquake, which occurred three months prior to the Beijing Olympics, attracted worldwide attention in May of 2008. Fo...

This volume is a critical interrogation of the concept, meaning and experience of disaster in 21st-century Japan. Throughout the chapters, a central theme and guiding theoretical perspective is the recognition of the human element in disasters. The evolution of disaster studies in Japan over the past three decades—and the contextual disaster policy changes and societal processes—shows that the empirical terrain for studying disasters is changing, animating the high interest in the sociolog...