What History’s Great Disasters Have in Common
At Princeton, a course on “Understanding Disasters” suggests that catastrophe is less about incompetence than the blind spots that success leaves behind.
Illustration: Isabella Cotier for Bloomberg
Before the Hindenburg exploded over a New Jersey landing field in 1937, it was considered normal procedure to let passengers puff away on luxury cigarettes while perched under 7 million cubic feet of highly flammable hydrogen gas.
What were they thinking? That’s not just a rhetorical question for Edward Tenner — a historian of technology with a penchant for surprise twists and unintended consequences. In his essay “Why the Hindenburg Had a Smoking Lounge,” which is also the title of a new collection of his essays (American Philosophical Society Press, 2024), Tenner explains that the Hindenburg needed smokers to buy tickets. A seat on the airship cost more than double the price of an ocean liner passage, so those who could afford it expected to fly in style and have their whims catered to.