They may prove cathartic
Ancient and modern history offer many examples of the political impact of natural disasters, says Mr. Zeilinga de Boer, who teaches earth and environmental sciences at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. For example:
• An earthquake in 464 BC that destroyed much of the city of Sparta, and a slave revolt soon afterward ("social upheavals often follow geological ones," says Zeilinga de Boer) significantly weakened the militaristic city-state in its rivalry with Athens. The quake "triggered Sparta's decline," he argues.
• An earthquake and tidal wave that killed 40,000 people in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in 1755 - the most catastrophic in European history - prompted the French philosopher Voltaire and others to question the dominant philosophy of optimism on which the ancien régime was founded. The earthquake contributed to the intellectual ferment that produced the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
From R Ford Christian Science Monitor
• An earthquake in 464 BC that destroyed much of the city of Sparta, and a slave revolt soon afterward ("social upheavals often follow geological ones," says Zeilinga de Boer) significantly weakened the militaristic city-state in its rivalry with Athens. The quake "triggered Sparta's decline," he argues.
• An earthquake and tidal wave that killed 40,000 people in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon in 1755 - the most catastrophic in European history - prompted the French philosopher Voltaire and others to question the dominant philosophy of optimism on which the ancien régime was founded. The earthquake contributed to the intellectual ferment that produced the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
From R Ford Christian Science Monitor
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