Predicting Disasters: Earthquakes, Scientists, and Uncertainty in Modern Japan by Kerry SmithGregory Smits

Excerpt

This book is “a history of scientists’ efforts to reduce the uncertainty around the timing and location of powerful earthquakes in modern Japan” (p. 7). More specifically, using a wide range of sources Kerry Smith examines the dynamic interactions between scientists, legislators, and the public; makes a strong argument that disasters, scientists, and uncertainty are just as important as more familiar topics for understanding the trajectory of postwar Japan; and makes Japan’s experience accessible to readers with a broad interest in the histories of disasters, scientific communities, and uncertainty. Smith claims that Predicting Disasters is the “first work in English to focus on disaster and Japan in the latter half of the twentieth century” (p. 9). Though I would not call it the “first,”1 in my view Predicting Disasters is the best analysis of postwar Japanese earthquake prediction in English; moreover I am not aware of anything comparable in Japanese. It is a superb book that should be read by anyone interested in the history of science in modern Japan or in postwar Japanese history.