Read this book in undergrad and I was deeply moved by how the author describes how deadly heat waves can be. Our teacher used this book as a teaching tool about the complexity of disaster response. I’m astonished that this tragedy claimed more lives than the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and yet, much like the Eastland disaster, it’s often overlooked by historians.

Missed the boat on climate change but an important look at environmental disaster and the role the media, government, culture, and the built environment facilitate (or detract from) life and death.

The social scientist approach makes for dry reading about a serious tragedy, one of the worst disasters in the 1990s. Because the heat wave victims were the poor, elderly, and friendless, this calamity is little remembered for the true policy failure that it was. The fact that Mayor Daley, who presided over this preventable disaster, is now lobbying for the Olympics is astonishing - especially since it's been a little over a year since he proved how inept he is at hosting public sporting events with the Chicago Marathon of 2007.

A powerful assessment of the 1995 deadly heat wave that killed over 700 elderly, poor, and ethnoracial in urban Chicago. Klinenberg delves into the depths of the communities hit, their struggle with crime and poverty; the government non-role as it does not set off alarms until the body count accelerates; the media coverage and how it choose to not report information unless it sold a paper; and the changes government made because of the heat wave. However government still lacks in properly dealing with poverty and crime. You will be see just how politics controls the media and how blame was given to the victims themselves. A riveting look at the social inequality in urban areas that could be your city. I highly recommend this book.