A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster

Day was an anarchist, journalist, and activist who founded the Catholic Worker movement. Her experience as a young child of the “human warmth and kindliness” following the San Francisco earthquake made a great impression on her (94). Her story is one of many featuring people who were changed for the better because of the earthquake and many other disasters. Day wrote about her love of public life and devoted herself to social causes, foregoing an intimate personal life in the process.

America Pragmatist philosopher William James was concerned with the consequences of beliefs rather than whether the beliefs themselves were true. Solnit references James’s work throughout the book, asking in many ways his central question: “What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true?” She uses this question often to interrogate the actions of the authorities in the wake of disaster. Solnit also employs his notion of the moral equivalent of war to argue for the importance of public identity and belonging.

A sociologist and Anglican priest, Prince was a survivor of the Halifax explosion of 1917 and founder of the field of disaster studies. In his writings following the explosion, Prince identified disasters as opportunities for positive change. He wrote about citizens’ remarkable goodness in disaster settings, drawing on the writing of anarchist Peter Kropotkin, but also perpetuated negative myths and stereotypes about their savagery in line with theorists Thomas Hobbes and Gustave Le Bon. Solnit uses Prince to introduce the field of disaster studies, born out of the Halifax explosion.

A French writer active in the early 20th century, Le Bon was interested in questions of human nature and argued that people tend to act cruelly without the restraint of civilization. His most influential book, The Crowd, argues that people become less civilized when swept away with the “primordial forces” of a mob, and that crowds themselves are dangerous and can make sane people go mad. Solnit introduces Le Bon in concert with two other theorists writing on similar issues, Samuel Prince and Peter Kropotkin, to discuss the myriad conceptions of human nature that were popular at the time.

Kropotkin was born into the Russian aristocracy but as a young man renounced his title and became an explorer in remote areas of Siberia. He later became an influential anarchist writer, arguing that people are inherently good and that the state and its coercive institutions are the source of society’s ills. He argued that mutual aid and cooperation are inherent in the animal kingdom and in humanity. Solnit juxtaposes Kropotkin and French writer Gustave Le Bon to illustrate opposing trends in social philosophy during the early 20th century.

Super Barrio was a wrestling character created during the social upheaval following the Mexico City earthquake of 1985. In his wrestling outfit and mask, he attended tenants’ protests, evictions, and political events to advocate for the poor. The character, though played by many people throughout the years, was most famously played by ex-revolutionary Marco Rascón. Super Barrio is an example of the power of spectacle, theatrics, and celebration in social movements.

New York City’s mayor during 9/11, Giuliani was portrayed as a traditional, rugged, and masculine hero by the media. This positive portrayal obfuscated his administration’s poor disaster preparation and coordination of the police and fire department. Giuliani also cooperated with the Bush administration’s censorship of environmental and health reports following 9/11. In this book, Giuliani represents elite panic and the ineffectiveness and at times harmfulness of the authorities.