Typhoons : climate, society, and history in the Philippines / James Francis Warren.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Part 1: The riddle -- Introduction -- Advancing from the open seas -- Piecing together the evidence -- On taking the long view and approaches to Philippine history -- Divine punishment and the wrath of the Gods -- The Manila observatory, 1865-1897 -- Fr. José Algué and American colonialism -- Jesuit meteorology and the end of an era -- Part 2: The rampage -- Manila: commerce, empire, and environmental degradation -- The typhoon factor and trans-pacific trade -- The veering winds: maritime trade after the galleons -- Like gray silk: the South China sea -- Rivers run wild -- Deadly walls of water -- Floods, droughts, and cash-crop agriculture -- Eating grass and roots -- Disease and death -- Part 3: The response -- The tyranny of inertia -- The American era -- Typhoons in the "Geneva of Asia" -- The Marcos years -- Part 4: The reckoning -- Plundering the environment -- The twenty-first century -- Conclusion: a storm-prone archipelago.

"This book offers an unprecedented and extensive view of the complex interplay of typhoons and Philippine society. Its sweeping coverage of the Philippine landscape that includes the earliest contact with the West, the development of the trans-Pacific trade, incursions of the Catholic religion, integration into the Modern World system, and the extraordinary influences of centuries of typhoons has made for remarkable scholarship. By placing typhoons and associated hazards at the center of his historical focus, James Francis Warren presents a bold and innovative interpretation of Philippine pasts and futures, whereby the distinctions between natural hazards and natural disasters disappear. He gives a unique and long-term perspective on Philippine environmental and economic-social history through the lens of a recurrent extreme weather event extending all the way to the present, laying down the critical challenges that confront us in a globally warmer and more unpredictable future. A very important reference material for all those interested in multidisciplinary approaches to environmental sciences, social sciences, economic and sociopolitical history, disaster risk management, and sustainable development, Typhoons is an astonishing, panoramic, persuasive study of inestimable value"-- Back cover.

In English.