Throughout history humans have dealt with extreme events. Sometimes adaptively, coping with them, even thriving with them, reading the signals. Sometimes disastrously, repeatedly, ignoring the signals. Now extreme events and disasters are increasing in frequency and severity, and the signals are difficult to read. In Fire and Flood, Thomas Princen argues that the most useful signals may be those coming from fires and floods. And not just today’s fires and floods but those of the past too. This book looks to these past events as well as present-day ones to imagine - and to construct - a regenerative future.