This book aims to promote the debate in Brazil and across the Americas about disaster vulnerability reduction, analyzing its social, economic, environmental, political, technical and institutional dimensions. In this region of the world, with its histories, social organization, politics and distribution of social power, what are the root causes and dynamic pressures of vulnerability? What are the types of vulnerability? How and to what extent, do vulnerabilities intertwine in the phases of anticipate, cope with and recover from harm? How can various actors work to reduce vulnerability? What are the barriers and bridges to do it? Which experiences reveal practices of capacity building for vulnerability reduction? What are the barriers and bridges to capacity building? How best can local, traditional and vernacular knowledge of specific places be combined with outside specialist knowledge in order to reduce disasters? ¿ Our proposal aims to go beyond speeches, descriptions and detailed analysis. The challenge is to find ways of framing and conceptualizing disaster and practical experiences that guide and stimulate the application of knowledge to allow effective actions. Hopefully this discussion will link contributions from researchers, policymakers, practitioners with different views and different areas of knowledge. With the UNISDR’s Global Platform for Disaster Reduction coming to Cancun, Mexico in May of 2017, this is an auspicious moment to pull together such contributions in a free, on-line site in order to stimulate a vigorous discussion that may inform governmental and non governmental reports and interventions at that meeting and at the regional meetings that precede it. Above all, the collection of a critical mass of evidence from the Americas is yet another step in humanity’s perennial business of making the world more secure for children and generations to come.