Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
+WORK TITLE: How the World Breaks
WORK NOTES: with father, Stan Cox
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Copenhagen
STATE:
COUNTRY: Denmark
NATIONALITY: American
http://thenewpress.com/authors/paul-cox
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Anthropologist and writer.
WRITINGS
Contributor to journals, including Disasters and New Inquiry,
SIDELIGHTS
Paul Cox is an American anthropologist based in Copenhagen, Denmark, who writes about development issues and disasters worldwide. He wrote the book How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe’s Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia with his father, Stan Cox, a researcher at the Land Institute, a Salina, Kansas-based organization focusing on sustainable agriculture. In the volume, they look at a variety of natural disasters produced by climate change, along with their aftermath and recovery efforts. These include a 2006 volcanic eruption in Java, Indonesia; a tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in 2011; Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of New York and New Jersey in 2012; landslides in India in 2013; earthquakes and floods in many parts of the world; and wildfires in the Blue Mountains of rural Australia, which have intensified in the twenty-first century due to climate change.
The Coxes blame human activity for many of these calamities—not just through carbon emissions but also through road building and other development projects undertaken without giving sufficient thought to the consequences, so that the term natural disaster may be something of a misnomer. They deal with whether it is preferable to rebuild after disasters or to abandon areas that then can serve as buffer zones when catastrophes occur again. They detail effects on local economies, including the possibility that disasters can lead to economic growth. The Coxes predict that some well-populated areas, such as Miami Beach, Florida, are so vulnerable that climate-related events will likely eventually render them uninhabitable.
They further analyze human attitudes toward these events, noting that poor people in developing countries accept natural disasters as a way of life, largely because they have no other choice. While many societies have shown resilience in the face of catastrophe, that very resilience may keep their leaders from making the changes that will prevent recurrences. “So if we’re asking vulnerable communities to be the source of resilience, this is what we’re asking of them: to work constantly toward the capacity to absorb shocks and changes so that the rest of us don’t have to worry about those shocks and changes, and we can keep generating more of them,” they write. “It’s the expendability of their time and enjoyment of life that makes all of global capitalism resilient.”
Several reviewers considered How the World Breaks well researched and informative, if rather downbeat. “The book at its strongest details the human cost of the world’s changing climate,” remarked James Mumford, writing online at Truthdig. “The picture it paints is a scary one, where eventually societies around the globe will simply fail to withstand the successive catastrophes.” On the whole, their depiction “is stark but not alarmist, which makes their book highly readable,” Mumford noted, while “they have done a remarkable job of putting a human face on a series of disasters normally overlooked or quickly forgotten.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor observed that the Coxes provide “a frightening, from-the-trenches overview of ‘natural’ and man-made disasters—and responses to them,” adding that “though short on a clear thesis, the book is strong on examples of human adaptation in the face of catastrophe.”
In Booklist, Colleen Mondor related that the degree of detail in the authors’ accounts “can be head-spinning,” but it makes for “an invaluable overview of global struggles.” A Publishers Weekly critic added: “While definitive answers remain difficult to come by, their message is clear: solving the ecological problems of climate change requires more than technological fixes.” In Xpress Reviews, Harold D. Shane commented that How the World Breaks offers much that will be worthwhile to a variety of audiences. “Highly recommended to general science readers, this work should be read by those responsible for making major policy decisions,” he concluded.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, June 1, 2016, Colleen Mondor, review of How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe’s Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia, p. 25.
Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2016, review of How the World Breaks.
Publishers Weekly, May 9, 2016, review of How the World Breaks, p. 58.
Xpress Reviews, July 1, 2016, Harold D. Shane, review of How the World Breaks.
ONLINE
Truthdig, http://www.truthdig.com (September 19, 2016), James Mumford, review of How the World Breaks.
How the World Breaks Web site, http://howtheworldbreaks.com/ (February 21, 2017), brief biography.
New Press Web site, http://thenewpress.com/ (February 21, 2017), brief biography.
Paul Cox is an anthropologist and a writer on development and disaster. He is based in Copenhagen and works all over the world.
Paul Cox is an anthropologist and a writer on development and disaster. He is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and regularly conducts research in Central Africa.
Paul Cox is an anthropologist and writer based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
His work covers development and disaster around the world, with publications strewn all the way from the journal Disasters to The New Inquiry and Hyperallergic. With his father, Stan Cox, he is a co-author of How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe’s Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia (The New Press).
How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path from the Caribbean to Siberia
Colleen Mondor
Booklist. 112.19-20 (June 1, 2016): p25.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Quoted in Sidelights: can be head-spinning ... an invaluable overview of global struggles.
How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path from the Caribbean to Siberia. By Stan Cox and Paul Cox. July 2016. 416p. New Press, $28.95 (9781620970126). 904.
This father-son writing team comprises a Denmark-based anthropologist and a research coordinator for the Land Institute in Kansas, an organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture. Their goal in this ambitious and somewhat scholarly title is to provide in-depth surveys of several locations already suffering from the effects of climate change. From the relentless optimism of Miami Beach to Australia's fires, a mud-flow disaster in Indonesia, the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New York City (and the insistence on trying to maintain business as usual in the midst of the crisis), and the devastating volcanic eruption on the island of Monserrat, the Coxes discuss economics, climate science, and politics as they consider how areas that have no choice but to deal with global warming are doing so. Covering so many different locations and disasters in such dense detail can be head-spinning, but this is an invaluable overview of global struggles. And a terrifying one, as both authors believe it should be.--Colleen Mondor
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Mondor, Colleen. "How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path from the Caribbean to Siberia." Booklist, 1 June 2016, p. 25. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA456094008&it=r&asid=ce4f45c6272c413efc321735d7b2848a. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A456094008
Cox, Stan: HOW THE WORLD BREAKS
Kirkus Reviews. (May 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Quoted in Sidelights: A frightening, from-the-trenches overview of "natural" and man-made disasters--and responses to them
short on a clear thesis, the book is strong on examples of human adaptation in the face of catastrophe.
Cox, Stan HOW THE WORLD BREAKS New Press (Adult Nonfiction) $28.95 7, 12 ISBN: 978-1-62097-012-6
A frightening, from-the-trenches overview of "natural" and man-made disasters--and responses to them--across the globe. This father-and-son team of scientists--Stan (Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing, 2013, etc.) is a research coordinator at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and his son, Paul, is an anthropologist based in Copenhagen--delves closely into "geoclimatic hazards," such as earthquakes, cyclones, volcanic eruptions, and mudslides, from Missouri to Australia, gauging the human toll and cultural value of so-called victimization and resilience. These are personal stories of cataclysm--e.g., the almost resigned, mystical attitude of Filipinos to deadly cycles of typhoons and earthquakes, during which thousands of people perish, a toll unimaginable to Western nations; or conditions in the slums of flooding-prone Mumbai, where residents have no choice but to accept their role as "absorber" of shocks for the rest of the stricken city. The authors also offer stories of how disasters are used as opportunity, especially in economic rebuilding--i.e., pushing through much-needed legislation for reinvigorating the status quo, which occurred in Joplin, Missouri, after a deadly tornado wiped out its blighted business district in 2011 or in New York City and coastal New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Each chapter of this work of wide-traveled research takes up one aspect of these geoclimatic hazards once considered a kind of punishment for man's sins (such as the mother of all disasters, the Lisbon earthquake of 1755). More recently, the horrendous 2013 mountain landslides in Uttarakhand, India, were arguably the result of man-made road building and deforestation. In the end, the authors assert that communities at risk, such as Miami Beach, Florida, "have to abandon as a mirage the old promises of security and development" and embrace what is going to become the art of resilience. Though short on a clear thesis, the book is strong on examples of human adaptation in the face of catastrophe.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Cox, Stan: HOW THE WORLD BREAKS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 May 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA452197894&it=r&asid=c73df7c0972d1527ea10fe9a708ceaf8. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A452197894
How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia
Publishers Weekly. 263.19 (May 9, 2016): p58.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Quoted in Sidelights: While definitive answers remain difficult to come by, their message is clear: solving the ecological problems of climate change requires more than technological fixes.
How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia
Stan and Paul Cox. New Press, $28.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-62097-012-6
Scientist Stan and anthropologist Paul, father-and-son ecological investigators, travel the world on a grand tour of recent geoclimatic disasters in order to imagine how human habitats will change as the planet becomes warmer, wetter, and more crowded. They have few positive things to write about, covering such events as wildfires in Australia's Blue Mountains, Hindu pilgrims caught in a Himalayan mudslide, super typhoons in the Philippines, and the Caribbean island of Monserrat getting buried in volcanic ash. U.S. locations, including Miami and the Tornado Alley of the Midwest, also feature prominently on the pair's itinerary. En route, they tackle some difficult questions: Do natural disasters promote long-term economic growth? Can cities be made to float? How do a northward-creeping taiga and melting permafrost affect carbon balance? Does climate change disproportionately affect the world's poor? Attempting to address these and other pressing ecological quandaries leads them to make some intriguing intellectual connections: they touch upon cultural anthropology, Enlightenment literature, Ponzi scheming, and real-life engineering that sounds like science fiction. While definitive answers remain difficult to come by, their message is clear: solving the ecological problems of climate change requires more than technological fixes. July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia." Publishers Weekly, 9 May 2016, p. 58. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA452883358&it=r&asid=623742d264bf95ad717f9f19cd9e166e. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A452883358
Cox, Stan & Paul Cox. How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia
Harold D. Shane
Xpress Reviews. (July 1, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Full Text:
Quoted in Sidelights: Highly recommended to general science readers, this work should be read by those responsible for making major policy decisions.
Cox, Stan & Paul Cox. How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia. New Pr. Jul. 2016. 416p. illus. notes. ISBN 9781620970126. $28.95. SCI
Hardly a year goes by without a major loss of life and property caused by natural disasters. This book uses specific examples from around the globe to illustrate the magnitude of destruction from fire, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and windstorms. After each event, the powers that be praise the resilience of nature and the people affected. However, Stan Cox (research coordinator, Land Inst.; Losing Our Cool; Any Way You Slice It) and anthropologist and writer Paul Cox (Disasters; The New Inquiry) point out that these words cover up the truth: that with proper preparation by these same people, the devastation could have been much less severe. In fact, human activities that involve modification of the natural terrain and waterways and, of course, global warming are significant factors in exacerbating problems. Moreover, incompetence, profiteering, and outright corruption frequently impede recovery after a catastrophe. Even more disheartening, the authors note, it is the poorest and most disadvantaged who are most adversely affected. This narrative is carefully researched and supported by more than 60 pages of references to original sources. Although some examples are given of intelligent rebuilding and planning, on the whole it is a very sorry history.
Verdict Highly recommended to general science readers, this work should be read by those responsible for making major policy decisions.--Harold D. Shane, Mathematics Emeritus, Baruch Coll. Lib., CUNY
Shane, Harold D.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Shane, Harold D. "Cox, Stan & Paul Cox. How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia." Xpress Reviews, 1 July 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA458550551&it=r&asid=291e937780a2c3cb196c0e1c841d35d1. Accessed 23 Jan. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A458550551
Quoted in Sidelights:
is stark but not alarmist, which makes their book highly readable.
The book at its strongest details the human cost of the world’s changing climate. The picture it paints is a scary one, where eventually societies around the globe will simply fail to withstand the successive catastrophes.
they have done a remarkable job of putting a human face on a series of disasters normally overlooked or quickly forgotten.
And the reviewer quotes this from the book, which I've added to Sidelights for length, but it shouldn't count toward fair use from the review: “So if we’re asking vulnerable communities to be the source of resilience, this is what we’re asking of them: to work constantly toward the capacity to absorb shocks and changes so that the rest of us don’t have to worry about those shocks and changes, and we can keep generating more of them. It’s the expendability of their time and enjoyment of life that makes all of global capitalism resilient.”
How the World Breaks
Posted on Sep 19, 2016
By James Mumford
New Press
To see long excerpts from “How the World Breaks” at Google Books, click here.
“How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe’s Path From the Caribbean to Siberia”
A book by Stan Cox and Paul Cox
In “How the World Breaks,” a father-and-son-team, Stan Cox and Paul Cox, show us a world where the catastrophes caused by a changing climate are becoming more powerful and occurring with increasing frequency. The men, women and children who live in the cities, villages and slums affected by these disasters display admirable resilience, braving harsh conditions to save their homes and families. Every natural disaster presents those directly affected with a choice. Those threatened by the planet’s changing climate, especially in vulnerable areas, can dig in their heels to defend against future disasters. If resources are available, they can rebuild their homes after the storms come through. Alternatively, before an imminent disaster or in the aftermath of one, these people—again, if the resources are available—can leave. These towns can be written off, their wreckage transformed into buffer zones against future catastrophes. This is the world the Coxes foresee, one in which catastrophes become so destructive and so frequent as to make it all but impossible to stay in certain areas of the globe. There will be a general retreat of those who once lived in these violent, chaotic lands to safer areas.
The Coxes’ portrayal of life on this new frontier—where intensifying disasters have become a reality—is stark but not alarmist, which makes their book highly readable. They take us around the world to societies where governments and citizens have already been forced to make decisions in the face of disasters caused by corrupt and reckless industrial practices and a changing climate. Their citizens can stay and fight against these natural and man-made catastrophes, rebuild, or abandon their homes and livelihoods. They also show us coastal cities, such as Miami, where residents have not yet had to make that choice. In other parts of the world, from Indonesia to the East Coast of the United States, people are only just beginning to realize how limited their options really are.
In rural regions of Victoria, Australia—the parts Australians call “the bush”—locals are just starting to see how devastating climate change is. Fires have become more intense, hotter and larger. They burn longer, too, often by a couple of weeks. The largest fires used to come every six or seven years. Now, such fires are an annual event. Those who grew up in the bush speak of fathers and grandfathers who embodied a hyper-masculine ideal by staying and fighting fires. Faced with rising death tolls, due in large part to increasing numbers of former urbanites moving to the bush, attitudes are changing. There are those who continue to fight. Women too have joined the ranks of firefighters and commanders in recent decades. Despite this, Victoria’s fire slogan was recently revised to a simple plea: “Leave and Live.”
For an example of a society that has been utterly destroyed, and whose lands have been left as a kind of buffer zone against future disasters, our authors travel to the island of Java, Indonesia, where a volcano erupted in 2006, slowly burying a nearby village in a foul-smelling gray sludge. A decade later, this goo continues to pour from the volcano. There is some evidence to suggest that industrial drilling in the area was responsible for the eruption. What is certain is that life for the surviving villagers was forever altered. Many are still living in refugee camps, undecided over a convoluted compensation scheme offered by the government and the drilling company. Levees now surround the volcano, along with frequent pumping operations, to prevent mud from spilling farther out on the island. That this sludge is pumped into a nearby river seems to worry only those scientists who have found elevated mercury levels in the water and its fish. Meanwhile, optimistic former residents hope to turn the mud flat into a destination resort and spa. Today, they charge travelers a fee to climb a set of bamboo and wooden steps to the top of the levee, where they can look out on the pool of gray sludge. A small consolation prize for men, women and children who once called the land home.
Book Cover Image How the World Breaks Purchase in the Truthdig Bazaar
The book at its strongest details the human cost of the world’s changing climate. The picture it paints is a scary one, where eventually societies around the globe will simply fail to withstand the successive catastrophes. While the authors suggest that profound transformations at the level of governments and society would be necessary to address the roots of these catastrophes—climate change driven by human activity—they also foresee a “managed retreat” in “a dizzying world of unmanageable hazards.” The Coxes offer some interesting policy proposals, such as the creation of universal, single-payer disaster insurance programs in the United States. The authors do concede that many of their proposals would be, in today’s political climate, dead on arrival. They’re also persuasive in addressing the notion that continued economic growth or various plausible ecological developments, like the growth of new forests in the warming northern latitudes for instance, might stem the immense difficulties a changing climate will bring.
Meanwhile, the Coxes seem to suggest that resilient societies, bouncing back from disasters, actually allow governments to continue to avoid enacting policies addressing the anthropogenic factors driving climate change. The authors write, “So if we’re asking vulnerable communities to be the source of resilience, this is what we’re asking of them: to work constantly toward the capacity to absorb shocks and changes so that the rest of us don’t have to worry about those shocks and changes, and we can keep generating more of them. It’s the expendability of their time and enjoyment of life that makes all of global capitalism resilient.”
The Coxes ask a simple question: How long can these new frontiers hold, before we are all vulnerable? In doing so, they have done a remarkable job of putting a human face on a series of disasters normally overlooked or quickly forgotten. Whatever one thinks of the Coxes’ economic or social analysis, one thing is clear: If natural disasters continue to increase both in terms of sheer destructive force and frequency, then the questions compelled by these disasters will not just apply to those in faraway lands, but to our friends, family members and ourselves. It is perhaps appropriate that I am writing this in a house that is covered by federally subsidized flood insurance in Long Beach, New York. This happens to be the same city where, in March of this year, a $37 million contract was awarded to finance the construction of a dune barrier 7 miles long. The project will create “a more resilient waterfront,” in the words of Sen. Chuck Schumer. The tide is rising and the hurricanes will come but the government is doing what it can to fortify this small stretch of coastline. This little patch of sand will be less vulnerable than it was, once the dune is constructed, at least until rising tides and violent storms tear it apart. But what about the rest of Long Island, to say nothing of the rest of the East Coast? For our authors, this dune project is exactly the kind of uncoordinated, piecemeal resilience that allows the world to break, one small village, township or city at a time. How we might reach a more coordinated approach to preventing and reacting to natural disasters driven by climate change remains an open question, and an urgent one.
James Mumford is a writer living and working in New York City.