Stephen Keane's history of the disaster genre offers a detailed analysis of films such as
The Towering Inferno
,
Independence Day
Titanic
, and
The Day After Tomorrow
. He looks at the ways in which disaster movies can be read in relation to both contextual considerations and the increasing commercial demands of contemporary Hollywood. In this second edition, he adds new material regarding cinematic representations of disaster in the wake of 9/11 and an analysis of disaster movies in light of recent natural disasters. Keane continually reworks this previously unexplored genre.