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Book Review
| Am Tag danach. Zur Bewältigung von Naturkatastrophen in der Schweiz 1500–2000. [The Day After: Overcoming Natural Disasters in Switzerland, 1500–2000.] Edited by Christian Pfister. Bern/Stuttgart/ Vienna: Haupt, 2002. 263 pp. Illustrations, notes, maps, graphs, bibliographies, index. Cloth 58.00, paper 36.00 (Euro). Simultaneously published in French as Le jour d'après. Surmonter les catastrophes naturelles: le cas de la Suisse entre 1500 et 2000.
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| In 1881, when the citizens of Tell City, Indiana, and New Elm, Wisconsin, heard the news of a landslide killing 114 people in Elm, Switzerland, their response was immediate and impressive: They collected money to help the victims and to rebuild Elm. More than one out of every four Swiss francs donated to Elm's survivors came from abroad, and most of this share came from emigrants to North America. The massive monetary solidarity covered exactly 74 percent of the damage, as calculated by local authorities; so one could write a success story of international aid to a grief-stricken community. And yet, as Hans Peter Bläuer points out in his contribution to this volume, the narrative is a bit more complex. The contemporaneous attribution of the catastrophe to the "blind forces of nature" was a rhetorical device to raise funds, since the landslide was a direct result of improperly conducted slate mining in the mountains of Elm. Some mining engineers had warned against the continuation of the exploitative practices, but to no avail. In the press coverage, however, these controversies were glossed over in favor of a unified portrayal of Elm's citizens as helpless victims deserving of support. |
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