Historical Disaster Experiences: Towards a Comparative and Transcultural History of Disasters Across

Part I: State of Research, Concepts and Methods.- Historical Disaster Experiences: First Steps towards a Comparative and Transcultural History of Disasters across Asia and Europe in the Pre-industrial Era.- Living with Hazard: Disaster Subcultures, Disaster Cultures and Risk-Mitigating Strategies.- Part II: Materiality of Disasters: Natural Impact, Social Experience.- Several Natural Disasters in the Middle East (at the Beginning of the Eleventh Century) and their Consequences.- Fana and Fasad: Perceptions and Concepts of Crises and Disasters in Fourteenth-century Egypt.- The Black Death and Human Impact on the Environment.- The day the sun turned blue. A volcanic eruption in the early 1460s and its possible climatic impact - a natural disaster perceived globally in the late Middle Ages?.- Cultural Implications of Natural Disasters: Historical Reports of the Volcano Eruption of July, 1256 A.D.- When Europe was burning. The multi-seasonal mega-drought of 1540 and the arsonist paranoia.- Part III: Heaven and Earth: Searching for Reasons.- Assur will suffer: Predicting disaster in Ancient Egypt.- 'Natural' Disasters in the Arabic Astro-meteorological Malhama Handbooks.- Tracing the Will of the Stars: Indian Astrology and Divination about Natural Disasters and Threats.- Explaining the Bihar Earthquake of 1934: The Role of Science, Astrology and 'Rumours'.- Part IV: Urban Experience: Earthquakes and Fire.- The 1173/1759 Earthquake in Damascus and the Continuation of Architectural Tradition.- Living with Disaster: Aleppo and the Earthquake of 1822.- 'The Great Fire in Cairo of 1321' - Interactions between Nature and Society.- Perceiving Urban Fire Regimes in Europe and China, 1830s to 1870s: British Fire Insurance Businesses and the Sudden Challenge of Globalisation.- Part V: Frequent Experience and Adaptations: Floods and Landscapes of Defence.- Economic adaptation to risky environment in the late Middle Ages. The case of the 'accrues' of the Doubs in Chaussin (Jura, France) from c. 1370 to c. 1500.- Measuring 'disaster'? The 'everydayness' of fluvial landscapes and the colonial state in Gangetic diaras, 1790s-1880s.- When the 'Deluge' Happened: The Flood of 1929 in the Surma-Barak Valley of Colonial Assam.- Alpine landscapes of defence - On modern-vernacular avalanche protection systems in the Swiss Alps.