‘Catastrophes do not occur in historical vacuums’, but are shaped through social, political and economic forces, Steve Kroll-Smith reminds us in his new work Recovering Inequality: Hurricane Katrina, the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, and the Aftermath of Disaster (p. 120). This book compares the two most catastrophic urban disasters in American history, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 with a focus on the aftermath of recovery. Comparative work can present challenges for both readers and the writer, including the risk of superficial examination of both, but Recovering Inequality skilfully shifts between these disasters almost a century apart, with a fulsome discussion. By highlighting the similarities and differences of two case studies, Kroll-Smith’s central argument that disasters recreate, rather than challenge inequalities in the recovery phase, is made the more compelling.