Warning: Undefined variable $num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 126
Warning: Undefined variable $posts_num in /home/shroutdo/public_html/courses/wp-content/plugins/single-categories/single_categories.php on line 127
While reading this weeks articles i found it interesting how both Jonathan Bergman’s article “Disaster: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis” and Biel’s introduction in American Disasters. Both ask the question of how to define a disaster and how it has an affect on the way we look at history.Whether you think a disaster is a “natural” occurrence or not, looking and analyzing the way people react or try to prevent a disaster helps us understand what big change either social or physical occurred in the area, and its impact on history. Biel suggests that “Disasters are the antithesis of everyday life…catastrophic disturbances of routine actually tell us a great deal about the ‘normal’ workings of culture, society, and politics”(Biel 5). This relates to our class discussion about writings in history and how we should look at how things change over time and how it interrupts continuity. Bergman reinforces this notion in his article saying, “…disaster offers a unique lens with which to examine history”(Bergman). I think both authors are trying to say that whatever kind a disaster is being talked about, looking into either the reactions of the people that lived through it or even looking at the aftermath to the disaster helps us analyze and better grasp the times of the event. There is a cause and effect to everything and looking at this with both the perceptions of the people that lived through said disaster and people’s opinions of the event now help us view history in a better light.