Kai Erikson

Biographic Data

ID243034
NAMEKai Erikson
GIVEN NAMESKai
FAMILY NAMEErikson
SIGNATUREERIKSON K
AFFILIATIONSYale University
VERIFIEDNo
TOTAL WORKS53
TOTAL CITATIONS364
AUTHOR COUNT52
EDITOR COUNT1
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1959
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2022
H-INDEX9

  • The Continuing Storm

    Kai Erikson, Lori PeekBOOKThe Continuing Storm2022

    More than fifteen years later, Hurricane Katrina maintains a strong grip on the American imagination. The reason is not simply that Katrina was an event of enormous scale, although it certainly was by any measure one of the most damaging storms in American history. But, quite apart from its lethality and destructiveness, Katrina retains a place in living memory because it is one of the most telling disasters in our recent national experience, rev…

  • The Sociologist's Eye

    Kai T Erikson, Kai EriksonBOOKApproaching Sociology2017

    This book is a masterful introduction to, and appreciation of, sociology as a window into our world. The culmination of a distinguished career, and a fascinating exploration into the nature of human social life, the book describes the field of sociology as a way of looking at the world rather than as a simple gathering of facts about it. It notes that sociologists look out at the same human scenes as poets, historians, economists, or any other ob…

  • Human Origins

    Kai EriksonCHAPTERApproaching Sociology2017

    This chapter discusses the origins of the human species on earth, in part to emphasize the fact that we are social animals. The story of human evolution spans millions of years, although it is not easy to establish a starting date or to draw an easy narrative line across those immense stretches of time. The evidence available to us is a spare collection of fossil remains dug out of the ground in widely scattered parts of the world, and a good dea…

  • Scp>H urricane K atrina

    Open AccessLori Peek, Kai EriksonOTHERThe Blackwell Encyclopedia of…2017

    This entry focuses on Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm that made landfall on August 29, 2005. The hurricane generated one of the most deadly and destructive disasters in US history, and it still stands as the most costly natural catastrophe on record. Katrina affected approximately 90,000 square miles of land and inundated 80 percent of New Orleans after the levee system surrounding the city failed. Residents of coastal communities and cities …

  • Studying Katrina

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLESociological Inquiry2014Cited by: 1

  • In Closing

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLESociological Inquiry2014

  • William R. Freudenburg as student

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLEJournal of Environmental Studies…2012

  • Obsolete and Irreversible

    Robert Gramling, William R Freudenburg et al.ARTICLESociety & Natural Resources2011Cited by: 4References: 8

    While “economic development” projects have long been proposed and supported by local growth machine elites, technological change has affected the social desirability of large projects in three ways. First, large development projects—we examine water transportation—have grown in size, meaning that backers often seek public funding. With increased size and the need for external funding, many years or decades can elapse by the time a project can be …

  • Disproportionality and Disaster

    Open AccessWilliam R Freudenburg, Robert Gramling et al.ARTICLESocial Science Quarterly2009Cited by: 2References: 22

    Objectives. Although many observers have interpreted Hurricane Katrina's damage to New Orleans as a case of nature striking humans, we draw on the sociological concept of the growth machine to show that much of the damage resulted instead from what humans had done to nature—in the name but not the reality of “economic development.” Methods. We triangulate findings from multiple qualitative techniques, including first‐hand fieldwork, interviews, a…

  • John Kitsuse

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLEThe American Sociologist2009

  • Kai's Response to Howard, Hana, Ben, and Dorothy

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLESociological Inquiry2008

    It has been quite an experience for me to see something I wrote so long ago refracted through the readings of four colleagues whose views I respect and whose approval I would like to have earned. Looking at the essay again through that new lens makes me wish I could just start over again—express myself more clearly in those passages where I suspect I did not make myself clear, and delete those passages I no longer like as well as I once did. But …

  • Hurricane Katrina

    Open AccessLori Peek, Kai EriksonOTHERThe Blackwell Encyclopedia of…2008

    Katrina” was initially the code‐name given to a powerful hurricane that gathered force out in the Atlantic in the summer of 2005, moved across the southern tip of Florida, and then landed with a vengeance on the US Gulf Coast. The reason “Katrina” has become a prominent name in modern history and has earned a place in this encyclopedia, however, has to do with its aftereffects. Hurricanes are measured by the velocity of their winds, the height of…

  • Organizing Hazards, Engineering Disasters? Improving the Recognition of Political-Economic Factors in the Creation of Disasters

    William R Freudenburg, R Gramling et al.ARTICLESocial Forces2008Cited by: 12

    Disaster studies have made important progress in recognizing the unequally distributed consequences of disasters, but there has been less progress in analyzing social factors that help create “natural” disasters. Even well-known patterns of hazard-creation tend to be interpreted generically — as representing “economic development” or “capitalism” — rather than through focusing on the more specific dynamics involved. We illustrate this point with …

  • On Sociological Writing

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLESociological Inquiry2008Cited by: 1

    It is widely thought, both inside and outside our profession, that sociologists do not express themselves very well. The critic Malcolm Cowley complained years ago that the wisdoms of sociology, such as they are, tend to be conveyed "in a language that has to be learned almost like Esperanto."2 And Edmund Wilson, who once toyed with the idea that the writing of every specialist in the university should be reviewed by professors of English, doubte…

  • Sociological Visions

    Gerald Marwell, Kai EriksonARTICLEContemporary Sociology A Journal…1999

  • Trauma at Buffalo Creek

    Open AccessKai T Erikson, Kai EriksonARTICLESociety1998Cited by: 5

  • A response to Richard Leo

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLEThe American Sociologist1996Cited by: 2

  • Commentary

    Open AccessKai EriksonARTICLEThe American Sociologist1995Cited by: 8

  • A New Species of Trouble

    Antony J Taylor, A J W Taylor et al.ARTICLEPolitical Psychology1995Cited by: 12

  • A New Species of Trouble

    Stephen P Kretzmann, Kai EriksonARTICLEWestern Historical Quarterly1995

    Journal Article A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma, and Community Get access A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma, and Community. By Erikson Kai. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994. 263 pp. Notes, index. $22.00.) Stephen P. Kretzmann Stephen P. Kretzmann University of Wisconsin-Madison Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 26, Issue 2,…

  • A New Species of Trouble

    Thomas E Drabek, Kai EriksonARTICLEContemporary Sociology A Journal…1994

  • Work, Workplaces, and Beyond

    Curt Tausky, Kai Erikson et al.ARTICLEContemporary Sociology A Journal…1991

  • The Nature of Work

    Randy Hodson, Kai Erikson et al.ARTICLEIndustrial and Labor Relations…1991

  • The Rhetoric of Social Research

    James Bennett, M L Devault et al.BOOKThe Rhetoric of Social Research1990

  • The Inefficient Years

    Kai Erikson