"This study examines the causal essence of calamity, peeling back the layers of obfuscation to find out not so much what but who is most often responsible for the destruction caused by tornadoes and other "natural" disasters. In undertaking such a venture, I run the risk of perpetuating a sharp division between nature (the what) and culture (the who). Of course, no such simple dichotomy exists in this Gordian-knot world of ours. And in any case, trying to disentangle the natural from the cultural is not my main concern here. Instead, I'm more interested in how drawing a distinction between us and it and blaming the latter—nature—for calamity has become a tool used to advance various political interests in society."
Ted
Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
(OUP 2000), Preface.