In September 1923, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated eastern Japan, killing more than 120,000 people and leaving two million homeless. Using a rich array of source material, J. Charles Schencking tells for the first time the graphic tale of Tokyo's destruction and rebirth. In emotive prose, he documents how the citizens of Tokyo experienced this unprecedented calamity and explores the ways in which it rattled people's deep-seated anxieties about modernity. While explaining how and why the disaster compelled people to reflect on Japanese society, he also examines how reconstruction encouraged the capital's inhabitants to entertain new types of urbanism as they rebuilt their world. Some residents hoped that a grandiose metropolis, reflecting new values, would rise from the ashes of disaster-ravaged Tokyo. Many, however, desired a quick return of the city they once called home. Opportunistic elites advocated innovative state infrastructure to better manage the daily lives of Tokyo residents. Others focused on rejuvenating society--morally, economically, and spiritually--to combat the perceived degeneration of Japan. Schencking explores the inspiration behind these dreams and the extent to which they were realized. He investigates why Japanese citizens from all walks of life responded to overtures for renewal with varying degrees of acceptance, ambivalence, and resistance. His research not only sheds light on Japan's experience with and interpretation of the earthquake but challenges widespread assumptions that disasters unite stricken societies, creating a "blank slate" for radical transformation. National reconstruction in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, Schencking demonstrates, proved to be illusive.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the earthquake and subsequent fires by survivors *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents Of the numerous disasters, both natural and man-made, to strike Japan during the 20th century, the Great Kanto Earthquake was among the worst, and the most significant. The massive earthquake struck the Japanese capital region, including the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, shortly before noon on Saturday, September 1, 1923, causing immense physical destruction. Buildings collapsed, crushing their occupants, and a tsunami assaulted miles of coastline, depositing boats well inland and dragging people, structures, and debris out to sea. In both Tokyo and Yokohama, the tremors set off firestorms that raged for days across the dense, wooden cityscapes. In all, the earthquake left perhaps 140,000 dead and more than 2 million homeless, transforming East Asia's most prosperous and modern urban area into a scorched, burned-out wasteland. On the day of the earthquake, according to the Buddhist figure Takashima Beiho, "Nature raged all at once, collapsing the pillars of the sky and snapping the axis of the earth. The big city of Tokyo, the largest in the Orient, at the zenith of its prosperity, burned down and melted away over two days and three nights." Together, the earthquake and firestorm killed somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, left more than a million homeless, and destroyed billions of yen worth of property. The best estimates are that up to 75% of all buildings in Tokyo were destroyed or seriously damaged, and while all of Tokyo was afflicted, the low city especially suffered. The five city wards in which damage was greatest (90% or more) were all located in the low city. The proud neighborhoods around Nihonbashi and Kyobashi were particularly gutted, and many symbols of the Mieji-era shitamachi, such as the original Shinbashi Station, the Mitsukoshi Department Store, the Asakusa Twelve-Stories, were destroyed in the conflagration. A few other emblematic buildings survived, most notably the Asakusa Kannon and, famously, Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel, but the earthquake truly marked the beginning of the end of the low city's preeminence as a center for culture and entertainment. Of course, the significance of the Great Kanto Earthquake was not restricted to the material destruction it caused. In the immediate wake of the disaster, anarchy reigned through the streets of Tokyo, and before the last of the firestorms had even been extinguished, panicked residents spread rumors and gathered into armed vigilante groups, ultimately leading to thousands of deaths by mob violence. Police and municipal authorities found themselves powerless in the face of this chaos, and order was only restored when the Japanese government declared martial law and sent in the army to occupy the nation's own capital. Thus, the unrest following the Great Kanto Earthquake served at once to exacerbate tensions between Japan and its Korean colony, and it also burnished the reputation of the Japanese military as the one national institution upon which a troubled people could depend in a time of crisis. These developments would ultimately serve the nation poorly as it headed towards World War II. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake: The History and Legacy of the Earthquake That Destroyed Tokyo chronicles the earthquake and its aftermath. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the earthquake like never before, in no time at all.

Focusing on one landmark catastrophic event in the history of an emerging modern nation—the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo and surrounding areas in 1923—this fascinating volume examines the history of the visual production of the disaster. The Kanto earthquake triggered cultural responses that ran the gamut from voyeuristic and macabre thrill to the romantic sublime, media spectacle to sacred space, mournful commemoration to emancipatory euphoria, and national solidarity to racist vigilantism and sociopolitical critique. Looking at photography, cinema, painting, postcards, sketching, urban planning, and even scientific visualizations, Weisenfeld demonstrates how visual culture has powerfully mediated the evolving historical understanding of this major national disaster, ultimately enfolding mourning and memory into modernization.

This book is very wide in scope and will be extremely useful to both undergraduates and lecturers undertaking modern analytical chemistry courses.

Reaching from the Meiji Restoration to the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Clancy's innovative study not only moves earthquakes nearer to the centre of modern Japanese history but also shows how fundamentally Japan shaped the global art science, and culture of natural disaster.

While not all natural disasters can be avoided, their impact on a population can be mitigated through effective planning and preparedness. These are the lessons to be learned from Japan's own megadisaster: the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, the fi rst disaster ever recorded that included an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear power plant accident, a power supply failure, and a large-scale disruption of supply chains. It is a sad fact that poor communities are often hardest hit and take the longest to recover from disaster. Disaster risk management (DRM) should therefore be taken into account as a major development challenge, and countries must shift from a tradition of response to a culture of prevention and resilience. Learning from Megadisasters: Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake consolidates a set of 36 Knowledge Notes, research results of a joint study undertaken by the Government of Japan and the World Bank. These notes highlight key lessons learned in seven DRM thematic clusters—structural measures; nonstructural measures; emergency response; reconstruction planning; hazard and risk information and decision making; the economics of disaster risk, risk management, and risk fi nancing; and recovery and relocation. Aimed at sharing Japanese cutting-edge knowledge with practitioners and decision makers, this book provides valuable guidance to other disaster-prone countries for mainstreaming DRM in their development policies and weathering their own natural disasters.

When the volcano Tambora erupted in Indonesia in 1815, as many as 100,000 people perished as a result of the blast and an ensuing famine caused by the destruction of rice fields on Sumbawa and neighboring islands. Gases and dust particles ejected into the atmosphere changed weather patterns around the world, resulting in the infamous ''year without a summer'' in North America, food riots in Europe, and a widespread cholera epidemic. And the gloomy weather inspired Mary Shelley to write the gothic novel Frankenstein. This book tells the story of nine such epic volcanic events, explaining the related geology for the general reader and exploring the myriad ways in which the earth's volcanism has affected human history. Zeilinga de Boer and Sanders describe in depth how volcanic activity has had long-lasting effects on societies, cultures, and the environment. After introducing the origins and mechanisms of volcanism, the authors draw on ancient as well as modern accounts--from folklore to poetry and from philosophy to literature. Beginning with the Bronze Age eruption that caused the demise of Minoan Crete, the book tells the human and geological stories of eruptions of such volcanoes as Vesuvius, Krakatau, Mount Pelée, and Tristan da Cunha. Along the way, it shows how volcanism shaped religion in Hawaii, permeated Icelandic mythology and literature, caused widespread population migrations, and spurred scientific discovery. From the prodigious eruption of Thera more than 3,600 years ago to the relative burp of Mount St. Helens in 1980, the results of volcanism attest to the enduring connections between geology and human destiny. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.