Natural Disasters in a Global Environment is a trans-national, global and environmental history of natural and man-made disasters. In order to provide students with the clearest and most powerful accounts of each disaster, the authors employ detailed case studies of past and present events; each case study is written as a historical narrative while making use of the most recent scholarship surrounding these cases. Personal narratives, which appear throughout the text, fully engage students in an appreciation of the complexity - and devastation - of these events. The text also traces human responses to these occurrences and the historical transition from natural disasters being viewed as acts of a vengeful God to contemporary scientific explanations describing these events as a collection of scientific phenomena resulting from natural forces.  This book takes the unique approach of highlighting the role of science and describes the mechanisms responsible for these disasters in lucid and accessible terms in order to provide a better understanding of why they occur.