Eric Klinenberg. Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, xvii + pp. $ (paper), ISBN. 15 quotes from Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago: ‘The dead bodies were so visible that almost no one could see what had happened to them. The story of the deadly Chicago heat wave is fascinating enough, but don’t expect Eric Klinenberg’s book to be a popularly-accessible page-turner.
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And by July 20, over seven hundred people had perished-more than twice the number that died in the Chicago Fire oftwenty times the number of those struck by Hurricane Andrew in —in the great Chicago heat wave, one of the deadliest in American history. In the compelling, sobering, and exhaustively researched Heat WaveEric Klinenberg suggests a plausible reason.
Twitter Facebook Youtube Tumblr. Klinenberg meticulously documents the travesty klindnberg was the Chicago heat wave of As his title indicates, Klinenberg employs more than the typical tools of sociology—ethnographic fieldwork, participation observation, interviews, archival research, mapping, and statistical analysis 13 —to retroactively explore the heat wave that took more than lives from Chicago’s most vulnerable.
The Battle to Control America’s Media. Listen to an interview on Fresh Air. Top city officials tried to gloss over the event as much as possible. There’s been a eeric based off of the book, however; that I really might be interested in seeing. Thanks for telling us about the problem.
You may eeric this title at these fine bookstores. The poor, the elderly, and the isolated are forgotten about in society which directly contributes to their demise during a disaster.
If the idea of conducting a social autopsy sounds peculiar, this is largely because modern political and medical institutions have attained monopolistic roles in officially explaining, defining, and classifying life and death, in establishing the terms and categories that structure the way we see and do not see the world. Plus, the modern forms of governance are not built in a way that can support those who do not actively seek services – which the most vulnerable people often do not.
Deprived of relief from the heat in any way, some literally suffocated to death in their apartments. Through a combination of years of fieldwork, extensive interviews, and archival research, Klinenberg uncovers how a number of surprising and unsettling forms of social breakdown—including the literal and social isolation of seniors, the institutional abandonment of poor neighborhoods, and the retrenchment of public assistance programs—contributed to the high fatality rates.
We are living in a time of deep divisions. In that case, I’m faulting him for not writing like a historian – not fair of me, but he still only gets two stars as a result.
The aim of the investigation is the heatwave in the city, which lasted roughly three days and killed several hundred people. The first group of red and yellow vehicles, each about forty-eight feet long, arrived on Friday, but they filled up quickly and dozens of bodies remained.
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
In the process, Heat Wave offers an exemplary demonstration of how an intensive, multilayered analytical focus on an extreme case or event can yield fresh insight into the social structures, ecologies, and policies that produce everyday inequity and hardship. Apparently methodologically controversial, at least where lkinenberg couple people are concerned, though I have yet to read the articles.
Urban Neighborhoods and the Ecology of Support 3. God is in the details, though, and Klinenberg painstakingly lays out for us both the structural and more proximate policies that led to the disastrous Chicago mortality figures of July There’s a problem loading this menu right now.
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Hrat those who did have air conditioning, many chose not to use it, fearing utility bills that erix could not afford to pay.
It’s hard to put down Heat Wave without believing you’ve just read a tale of slow murder by public policy. However, the information and content is interesting enough that it more than makes up for any problems with the story-telling itself. Aug 09, Emily rated it liked it Shelves: Mayor Daley was similarly guilty of managing the city through public relations denial techniques.
If you like nonfiction that reads like a page-turner, you will love this book.
This includes New Orleans and other areas prone to Hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. I found it fascinating how a state’s prior management or lack of of their city could result in such destructive consequences. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Living on meager olinenberg security checks, they could not afford air conditioners or the cost of running them, and did not open their windows for fear their homes would be invaded.
When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; the records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. Customers who bought this item also bought. In order to get out of their rooms and apartments, however, both the poor and elderly need to have welcoming and cool places to go, they need to feel safe walking their neighborhood streets and sidewalks, and they need to feel connected with or at least trusting of their neighbors and surrounding communities.
When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; the records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids wxve failed, leaving residents without electricity for up to two days. Aug 16, cory rated it really liked it Shelves: Books by Eric Klinenberg.
As Klinenberg demonstrates in this incisive and gripping account of the contemporary urban condition, the widening cracks in the social foundations of American cities that the Chicago heat wave made visible have by no means subsided as the temperatures returned to normal.
For when hundreds of people die behind locked doors and sealed windows, out of contact with friends, family, community groups, and public agencies, everyone is implicated in their demise. I just saw Cooked, a documentary film running in the Environmental Film Fest that is based on this book. Volcanic activity, who knew!
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, Klinenberg
If it is not pathbreaking for the study of political communication, it is nonetheless destined to be a recurrent point of reference and an excellent choice for classroom use. The many deaths were mainly the old and the poor, living alone, who endured a culture of fear fear of criminal activity in their area and lack of safe public spaces.
At times the author’s background as an academic comes through, and not necessarily in a good way, as the information is presented in a less compelling manner. It is a cautionary tale as weather becomes more extreme in the U. But do you know what caused the third greatest number eri deaths in the past 25 years? These actions were part of a concerted effort to govern and manage media coverage through public relations tactics.