Based on eighteen months of fieldwork spanning from 2008 to 2017, Disaster Nationalism follows national disaster management projects in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and through the end of the civil war, shedding light on disaster policies, state power dynamics, and national security. The tsunami reinforced an existing militarized logic of national vulnerability to manage uncontrollable threats, including war and terrorism. By tracing the mechanisms of disaster nationalism, the book illustrates how disaster management becomes an instrument of national securitization, propagating the fantasy of an always-at-risk nation. The introduction explains the book’s approach to disaster as an analytic. It gives a brief history of nationalism and militarization in Sri Lanka, discusses Sri Lanka’s institutionalized practices and legal frameworks around disasters and disaster management, and elaborates the concept of “disaster nationalism.” Finally, the introduction describes the fieldwork on which the book draws and outlines each of the chapters that follow.