There is considerable overlap between Gregory Smits's When the Earth Roars: Lessons from the History of Earthquakes in Japan and Tetsuo Takashima's Megaquake: How Japan and the World Should Respond. Both identify vulnerabilities based on past disasters, and both include proposals to mitigate future disasters. Smits provides a more thorough look at past disasters, while Takashima uses his skills as a novelist to imagine future ones.

When the Earth Roars is a rich survey of over ten seismic disasters in Japan supported by an impressive range of research. Smits outlines three main arguments. First, and most importantly, Smits argues that earthquake disasters are chaotic. Nevertheless, while each event is a unique combination of unpredictable geophysical forces and complex social conditions, as a whole, they also reveal patterns of vulnerability that can inform future disaster preparedness efforts. The second argument traces the history of science and technology surrounding earthquakes in Japan. Smits shows how early modern beliefs about earthquakes have led to an inordinate focus on earthquake prediction in Japan both in the government and in the scientific community. Finally, Smits proposes some general guidelines about disaster mitigation that should be of use to policy makers and disaster mitigation officials. Along with these officials, When the Earth Roars is particularly suited for historians of Japan and scholars interested in disaster studies more generally. It is a worthy addition to work on 3/11 and disaster in Japan, including Richard Samuels's book 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013).

One major contribution to the field is Smits's history of prewar tsunamigenic earthquakes in the Tōhoku area (Smits, chapter 4). This chapter helps situate 3/11 as anything but unprecedented and “beyond expectation” (sōteigai) and would help contextualize 3/11 in the classroom. Some have called the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami a “thousand-year disaster” because the last generally similar combination was the Jōgan earthquake and tsunami in 869. Smits clearly shows that devastating earthquake and tsunami combinations have been common throughout the history of the Tōhoku region. For example, a weak earthquake in 1896 triggered a tsunami that resulted in waves practically as high as those during 3/11. As Smits writes, “had settlement patterns in 2011 reflected a serious consideration of the 1896 tsunami, 3/11 would have been much less destructive” (Smits, p. 98).

Another theme in the book is the history of Japan's predilection for research on earthquake prediction, a topic throughout but the primary focus of chapter 5. Smits shows that legends and hearsay about phenomena portending earthquakes (strange weather, for example) mentioned in earlier earthquake records get repeated without basis in later disasters (including 3/11), often gaining a patina of truth. One surprising result of this apocryphal connection between weather and earthquakes, Smits points out, is that earthquakes in Japan are primarily monitored by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) rather than the Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ). (Smits adds that this overabundance of earthquake-related agencies also hinders Japan's earthquake policy; both the JMA and the GSJ, among others, have research branches that deal with earthquakes.) Another effect of persisting earthquake lore is Japan's unusual law that mandates attention to prediction, the 1978 Special Measures Law for Large-Scale Earthquakes, which has resulted in an unproductive allocation of resources.

From his extensive research, Smits has gleaned several lessons to mitigate the impact of future seismic disasters. Some have already been mentioned—the fact that earthquakes are chaotic and unpredictable, the need to simplify earthquake bureaucracy and revise or repeal earthquake-related legislation—but there are others. Smits shows that local disaster responses are often among the most effective. As he puts it, “networks of local governments with adequate resources and the power to make their own decisions in a flexible manner may well be the best model for disaster relief” (Smits, p. 61). In contrast to the unfruitful energy devoted to prediction, Smits rightfully points out that Japan's efforts toward anti-seismic engineering have been successful. While he does show that engineering responses to tsunamis, including the building of sea walls, can be effective to an extent, the most successful mitigation efforts include relocating people above maximum wave heights and teaching people to evacuate to higher ground following an earthquake of any size. Many disaster-ravaged communities in Tōhoku are building bigger sea walls or even raising the height of the community itself, but there are those who say that the most important thing is to have wide evacuation roads leading to elevated areas where schools and hospitals should be located. Both approaches were proposed after the 1933 Shōwa Sanriku Tsunami, but sea walls, most of which were ineffective in 3/11, became the dominant response. As Smits writes of the latter proposal, “there is much to be said for the basic idea in this proposal even now, in the wake of 3/11” (Smits, p. 122).

Megaquake: How Japan and the World Should Respond is a slightly updated translation of Takashima's 2006 book, Kyodai jishin no hi: Inochi wo mamoru tame no hontō no koto (The day of a megaquake: Truth to save your life; Tokyo: Shūeisha). The English subtitle is a bit misleading; this book is only minimally about disaster response. Rather, at the time it appeared in Japan, Megaquake provided what was likely a more accurate imagining of a large earthquake than the one provided by government agencies. Takashima begins by citing 1997 casualty estimates by the Tokyo metropolitan government that predicted just over 6,000 dead from a major quake hitting the city. Takashima shows they drastically underestimated the damage, “almost criminally so” as he later states, largely because they neglected key vulnerabilities (Takashima, p. 153). That the government has dramatically increased casualty estimates based on 3/11 (with the revised numbers often helpfully provided by the translator, Robert Eldridge) validates Takashima's critique.

Takashima had previously written novels about an M8 earthquake striking Tokyo and a major tsunami.Footnote ¹ In contrast to his novels, this book is a nonfiction look at vulnerabilities across Japan. Its strength is that Takashima uses his creative powers to imagine a disaster beyond government projections. In considering the impact of a tsunamigenic quake off the southeast coast, for example, Takashima clearly identified the potential for a nuclear accident. It is hard to believe officials’ claims of 3/11 being “beyond expectation” when Takashima's novels and this book had been in print for years.

Takashima bases his discussion on his own experiences of the 1995 Kobe earthquake and considerable examination of newspaper and government reports on that disaster and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, research that likely informed his novels. Like Smits, he looks for vulnerabilities based on past earthquakes and tsunamis to show what to expect after disasters in terms of casualties, sanitation issues, debris, criminal activity, price gouging, rumors, and long-term trauma.

Smits and Takashima also share many recommendations for Japan. Though he is not as skeptical toward the possibility as Smits, Takashima also finds fault with Japan's unbalanced emphasis on prediction. After introducing a pamphlet outlining an earthquake warning system, Takashima copies a disclaimer stating that advance notice will not always be possible and quips, “I doubt I am the only one who is frustrated with this pamphlet, which seems to avoid precision” (Takashima, p. 73). His final statement on the matter is that Japan should continue to research earthquake prediction, but should “even more proactively” focus on disaster mitigation (Takashima, p. 148). Both Takashima and Smits also find fault with Japan's redundant bureaucracy and recommend simplifying. Takashima's answer is to use the American model of two primary organizations: a geological survey and a FEMA-type disaster management bureau. Unfortunately, as the epilogue to Megaquake points out, the government has responded to 3/11 with more organizations.

While I think this is a worthwhile translation, there are some issues. First and foremost, despite the addition of some new numbers and an epilogue devoted to 3/11, it remains outdated. In a note below a 2005 table listing government estimates of potential wave heights, Eldridge writes, “These figures were substantially and in some cases exponentially increased in 2012,” but does not provide new numbers (Takashima, p. 90). In the last few years, there have been many books and government reports about the 3/11 disasters that provide more updated information and will be more pertinent.Footnote ² My other quibble with the book is a smaller one: the emphasis on America in the translator's foreword seemed out of place. While I recognize the importance of “Operation Tomodachi” and American assistance following 3/11 and the need for future international collaboration in disaster relief, the foreword was overly focused on the need for US help in disaster response and would have been more effective further situating the book in context. This emphasis is likely due to the translator's position as the deputy assistant chief of staff for the Marine Corps Installations Pacific.

Ultimately, this book would have been more pertinent before 3/11, when it was prescient. Now, there are other, better volumes about disaster mitigation and Japan. The subtitle of Megaquake is How Japan and the World Should Respond. Smits provides a better answer to a different question: how Japan and the world should prepare.