Aftershocks: Earthquakes and Popular Politics in Latin America (review)

Natural disasters in Latin America have, until recently, received relatively little attention from scholars. This volume is thus a valuable addition to that slowly growing literature. The focus of all seven authors is the effects that earthquakes had on the political and social structures of the societies that suffered major quakes from 1746 (Lima) to 1985 (Mexico City). The elegant essays reveal how societies changed in their varied responses to these disasters. Of course geographers will note that what are called "natural" in this volume, are as much cultural in the sense that man-made decisions on locations and structures of the built environment are just as important as the tectonic effects of nature.

As the editors point out in their introduction, natural disasters often clearly reveal the underlying social structures, how societies were constituted and what their priorities were. In most cases the class and ethnic structures were highly significant, the lower classes, and non-Hispanic bearing the brunt of the consequences in most cases. But not all earthquakes discriminated against the poor; in Valparaíso in 1906 the upper-class section of town, built on relatively unstable landfill, was destroyed, whereas the lower-class and middle-class neighborhoods on the solid rock hills overlooking the harbor were spared. Similarly, in the 1944 San Juan quake, the rich residents' houses in the downtown area, built with thick adobe walls, crushed their occupants, whereas on the outskirts the poorer groups in their flimsy homes built with wooden frames, sticks, and mud, generally survived.

Walker initiates the collection with details of the 1746 Lima earthquake, in which Callao was destroyed and approximately ten percent of the city's population died. He stresses the religious ferment this caused, demonstrating that the earthquake's impact opened conflicts between the viceroy and the archbishop as well as between the latter and the Inquisition. The licentious modes of life were proposed as a key reason for the wrath of God on the city: sin was blamed as the direct cause of this calamity. Religious interpretation also dominates Stuart McCook's analysis of the 1812 Caracas earthquake, which brought about the fall of the First Republic in Venezuela and showed how the population believed a religious interpretation --that the patriots had gone against the natural ruler, the King of Spain-- rather than the scientific explanations of the patriot government. He does, however, also argue that the effects of the earthquake were also very practical - the cities most affected were those under patriot control (and where the barracks fell on patriot troops), making possible royalist victories.

The Valparaíso quake of 1906, discussed in Maitland's chapter, produced a response that was focused more on security than rescue, a legacy of the government's fear resulting from earlier port workers' strikes. The destruction in the city led to a militarization of the port and a decision by the central government to take over many municipal functions, further extending Chilean centralism. Next, Mark Healy tells a complex story relating the San Juan earthquake of 1944 to the beginnings of Peronism. Peron's attempt to impose modernity on the destroyed city reflected many of Peronism's weaknesses. Healy analyses the response to the disaster and demonstrates that the San Juan elites effectively infiltrated the Peronist organization for their own benefit and, in the end, Peronism turned conservative. Discussions of moving the city also created tensions between political foes and the highly segregated social classes.

The pervasive corruption of the Somoza regime in the aftermath of the 1972 Managua earthquake forms the background to Paul Dosal's cogent analysis. He argues that President Anastacio Somoza's handling of the reconstruction effort -stealing funds and taking advantage of the disaster to make more money (selling blood donated for victims on the open market)- finally turned even formerly supportive business elite and the Catholic Church against the dictator. Thus...