NPLI News

FEMA's Serino on Tornado Response

Tue, 24 May 2011 08:00:00 EDT

NPLI Alum and FEMA Deputy Administrator Richard Serino speaks about the challenges of response in Joplin, MO on ABC's Nightline. "It must be a team effort," Serino said.

Leading in a Post-Bin Laden World

Wed, 18 May 2011 08:00:00 EDT

"...the first, overarching lesson from our research is that bad leadership – much like smoking – is a public health risk factor. Whether in the aftermath of a terror attack or a natural disaster, we have seen that when leaders don’t perform well lives are lost and people abandoned" Lenny Marcus and Barry Dorn share thoughts on leading in a post-Bin Laden world in the Washington Post. Read more.

Photo by Brian Boyd.

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Book - A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 08:00:00 EST

Rebecca Solnit

Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster- whether manmade or natural-people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities?

In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.

Order online.