This book argues that catastrophe is a particular way of governing future events - such as terrorism, climate change or pandemics - which we cannot predict but which may strike suddenly, without warning, and cause irreversible damage.

1. Introduction 2. Securing Catastrophic Futures 3. Conjectures of Catastrophe: 'The Next Terrorist Attack' 4. Economies of Catastrophe 5. Imagining Catastrophes 6. Aesthetics of Catastrophe 7. Catastrophe, Exception, Event 8. Conclusion

Claudia Aradau is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at King's College London. She is the author of Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics out of Security.

Rens van Munster is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). He is the author of Securitizing Immigration: The Politics of Risk in the EU.