Environment
'We've Built Right Up to the Edge in the Most Foolish Way'
A historian of coastal settlements says we only have ourselves to blame for Sandy's destruction.
As luck would have it, the book sitting on my bedside table when I went to sleep in Brooklyn Monday night — Hurricane Sandy howling past my windows — was The Human Shore: Seacoasts in History, by John R. Gillis. It was published just two weeks ago by the University of Chicago Press, and this review copy had made its way to me, although I had yet to open it.
In Sandy’s aftermath, sitting in my house on the edge of a seacoast that was having its own historical moment, I decided to take a look inside.