Vajont
The Political Ecology of an Unnatural Disaster
$108.56
- Paperback
160 pages
- Release Date
2 June 2026
Summary
The sobering political implications of a disaster—the Vajont landslide in Italy in 1963—and how it speaks directly to our present environmental crisis.
On October 9, 1963, 2,000 people perished in the Belluno mountains, not far from Venice, engulfed by a wave of water and mud unleashed by a massive landslide that crashed into the basin at the foot of Mount Toc. Science, power, and memory are entangled in the vortex of the Vajont Dam disaster—a stark reminder that these domains are inh…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262053013 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0262053012 |
| Author: | Marco Armiero |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 160 |
| Release Date: | 2 June 2026 |
| Weight: | 369g |
| Dimensions: | 210mm x 133mm |
| Series: | History for a Sustainable Future |
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Critics Review
ENDORSEMENTS
“Marco Armiero’s brilliant analysis of the Vajont tragedy—a disaster caused by hubristic terraforming—is a powerful critique of technological overreach and technocratic indifference to the voices of the marginalized. This is a book of urgent relevance to the world of the Anthropocene.”
—Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement
“Marco Armiero has written a hard-hitting, judicious account of a devastating 1963 flood disaster in northern Italy that beautifully spells out the natural limits to human history. Vajont is the perfect antidote in a world in which the arrogance of the powerful seems to know no limits.”
—Ted Steinberg, author of Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
“Resistance speaks in many voices. Through his extraordinary stories, Marco Armiero has shown us that it is expressed not only in words, but also in bodies, in places, and in undisciplined ways of thinking about problems. Vajont is one of those books that will stay with you for a long time, revealing what lies beneath the surface of what politics calls an ‘environmental tragedy.’”
—Serenella Iovino, James Gordon Hanes Distinguished Professor in Humanities, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
About The Author
Marco Armiero
Marco Armiero is an ICREA Research Professor at the Institute for the History of Science, Autonomous University of Barcelona, and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Consortium for Environmental History Organizations and is the author of Wasteocene and a coauthor of Mussolini’s Nature (MIT Press).
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