Fire and Flood

Extreme Events and Social Change Past, Present, Future

Thomas Princen

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English

MIT Press
24 June 2025

Society & culture: general

How extreme events, paradoxically, sow the seeds of positive response-and create opportunities for becoming adaptive to place.

How extreme events, paradoxically, sow the seeds of positive response-and create opportunities for becoming adaptive to place.

Throughout our history we have dealt with extreme events, sometimes adaptively, by coping or even thriving with them, and sometimes disastrously, by repeatedly ignoring their lessons. Now extreme events and disasters are increasing in frequency and severity, and their signals are difficult to read. In Fire and Flood, Thomas Princen argues that the most useful signals may be those coming from fires and floods, both historically and today. This book looks to these past and present events to imagine-and to construct-a regenerative future.

Extreme events are much more than just confirmation of climate change. Princen's in-depth investigation of disaster response, including our long-term societal response, goes beyond the harm and destruction, the cries for better prevention and protection, and the simplistic formula that, with mere awareness of extreme events, the world will finally ""combat"" climate change. We must learn to read extreme events as signals indicating how adaptive or maladaptive our patterns of extraction, consumption, settlement, and transport are, and, more generally, how sustainable and just our economies are. Understanding these signals will allow us to become adaptive to place and plan for a future living with fires and floods.

By: Thomas Princen
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States [Currently unable to ship to USA: see Shipping Info]
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262552127
ISBN 10: 0262552124
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 24 June 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Thomas Princen is a faculty member at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Among his books are The Logic of Sufficiency, Treading Softly, Confronting Consumption, Ending the Fossil Fuel Era, and The Localization Reader, all from the MIT Press.

Reviews for Fire and Flood: Extreme Events and Social Change Past, Present, Future

“Tom Princen shows us that fires and floods are more than just disasters. They reflect an increasingly dysfunctional order, but also open opportunities for change. We should heed his call for a new politics of caring, humility, and imagination.” —Ken Conca, Professor of Environment, Development, and Health, School of International Service, American University; author of After the Floods: The Search for Resilience in Ellicott City “Princen tackles extreme events through the lens of potential societal change, offering propositions necessary for us to build a more resilient future for our planet and its inhabitants. A must-read in disaster politics!” —Deserai Anderson Crow, Professor, School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver; coauthor of Community Disaster Recovery: Moving from Vulnerability to Resilience