In the early twenty-first century, throughout the world, people saw harrowing news coverage of several major disasters—the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the (2010) earthquake in Haiti, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, and terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005). In the aftermath of such heartbreaking events, whether manmade or natural, we understand how critical it is for affected people to receive relief to maintain and restore the everyday patterns of their lives.

This two volume encyclopedia covers the concepts, issues, techniques, and practices related to disaster relief. Modern ideas of disaster relief began in the early twentieth century with World War I, evolved in the 1940’s and changed again during the Cold War. In the United States, the field of disaster relief experienced a large reorganization in 2001 with the formation of the Department of Homeland Security.

This work contains more than four hundred entries, arranged alphabetically, and varying in length from several paragraphs to several pages. Entries address the phases of disaster management such as “planning for disasters,” “mitigation practices,” “phases of recovery,” and “operational response strategies.” Other entries give overviews of disaster types including “droughts,” “floods,” “pest invasions,” tornadoes,” and “volcanoes.” Geographical entries such as “China,” “Mediterranean Region,” and “Ring of Fire” cover disasters that occurred in specific parts of the world and how governments responded. One of the largest group of entries relate to government and international agencies including “American Red Cross,” “Doctors Without Borders,” “FEMA,” “Peace Corps,” “UNICEF,” and “World Food Program.” Relief case studies of major disasters include “Kobe and San Francisco” earthquakes, “Chinese and Indian” famines, “Hurricanes Andrew and Rita,” terrorist attacks “Beirut, Madrid, and September 11, 2001,” and volcanoes, “Krakatoa and Mount St. Helens.”

Each entry is signed by a scholarly contributor with cross references and a bibliography of further readings. A resource guide includes a bibliography of books, journals and websites of many disaster agencies. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Preparedness Guidelines, September 2007 are included and an index completes the work.

For readers wanting information on specific historical disasters, Angus M. Gunn's two volume Encyclopedia of Disasters: Environmental Catastrophes and Human Tragedies (Greenwood, 2008) is a descriptive account of worldwide disasters over the past two thousand years. Encyclopedia of Disaster Relief is a unique resource written in clear, jargon-free language and is recommended for undergraduate library collections supporting coursework related to disaster relief.