A dislodged identity
Community and territory in 1960s Chile

This book examines the catastrophic Valdivia earthquake and tsunami—which, according to somewhat sensationalist sources, was “the strongest in history”—to understand and shed light on mid-20th-century Chile. The authors emphasize how the disaster managed to position itself symbolically during the commemoration of the sesquicentennial of independence, particularly the role it played in creating an official identity and other, less official ones that sought to incorporate earthquakes as a national symbol of a “teluric nation.”.