Paradise Built in Hell Essay Example

In this book “A Paradise Built in Hell: the extraordinary communities that arise in disaster,” by Rebecca Solnit. Solnit discusses the human nature of individuals amongst disasters. Solnit writes in her first chapter “A millennial good fellowship: The San Francisco Earthquake” captures different accounts of individuals from the 1906 earthquake. There are five sections in this chapter that Solnit will discuss the traits of people in catastrophes. “The Mizpah Café” Solnit describes the kind acts of a citizen Mrs. Anna Amelia Holshouer fed the people and gave them a place to come and gave them a place to come and relax and about they just lost everything “Disaster requires an ability to embrace contradiction in both the minds of those trying to understand it from afar”(p.15) This quotation describes the acts of Mrs. Holshouer Jacobson’s Joy” Solnit describes how the wealth and poor were both equal had to wait for help social class didn’t matter. Elites and authorities often feared the changes of disaster or anticipate that the change means chaos and destruction or at least undermining of the foundation of the powers. (p.21) there were no social class everyone was the same.” Those disasters are not necessarily great levelers some of the formally wealthy in this one no longer owned more than the poor and many of the poor were receiving relief for the first time.”(p.28) throughout this disaster the rich and poor thought of things the same way when it came to necessities. “The rich and poor alike just watched and waited it being useless to try and save anything but a few immediate necessities and when the intense heat made it necessary to move they got up with a laugh.” (p.29) the people of the 1906 earthquake tried to see the brighter side to the situation at hand. In General Funston’s fear Solnit gives a military point of view during the earthquake in the book “A paradise Built in Hell” The federal troops and the members of the regular police force and all special