States of Emergency: Responding to Terrorist Attacks and Other Disasters contains carefully selected readings designed to introduce students to a multidisciplinary conception of the knowledge, skills, abilities and resources that make a community ready to adapt and rebound after a disaster.

The first section focuses on criminological and public administration analyses of the importance of intelligence-led policing in a strong community. The second section brings together perspectives from political science, geography, sociology, and public policy to consider what makes an effective crisis leader. The third section explores communications approaches to managing a population during disaster and the fourth brings together approaches from public health, emergency medicine, and sociology to consider the components of a successful disaster medical response system. This volume follows each reading set with a primary source related to the events of 9/11 which offer perspectives on lessons learned from the emergency response efforts. These include Congressional testimony on intelligence and information sharing failures, an assessment of Arlington County, Virginia’s response to the 9/11 Pentagon crash, and an evaluation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s communications during and in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

To lead in a crisis requires a robust set of community and individual resources, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to properly wield them. This volume features multidisciplinary perspectives and thought-provoking readings that together emphasize that crisis management is complex, multidisciplinary, and networked. States of Emergency is well suited for courses in terrorism studies, crisis management, psychology, and political science.

Katherine Worboys Izsak is formerly the education director for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) and director of the Terrorism Studies program at the University of Maryland, where she taught courses in terrorism studies and emergency management for over a decade. She is now the director of Academic Programs with the University of Maryland’s College of Information (iSchool), where she continues her interests in research and teaching on crisis response. She received her master’s and doctorate in history from the University of Michigan.