|
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 | 
 enlarge | Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $3.48
You Save: $24.47 (88%)
New (12) Used (19) Collectible (3) from $2.74
Avg. Customer Rating:  94 reviews
Sales Rank: 41905
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.461051
ASIN: B000PD3MH0
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: NEW ------ Payment Guaranteed 100% SAFE / Satisfaction Guaranteed / @__08
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Geologically speaking, 1906 was a violent year: powerful, destructive earthquakes shook the ground from Taiwan to South America, while in Italy, Mount Vesuvius erupted. And in San Francisco, a large earthquake occurred just after five in the morning on April 18--and that was just the beginning. The quake caused a conflagration that raged for the next three days, destroying much of the American West's greatest city. The fire, along with water damage and other indirect acts, proved more destructive than the earthquake itself, but insurance companies tried hard to dispute this fact since few people carried earthquake insurance. It was also the world's first major natural disaster to have been extensively photographed and covered by the media, and as a result, it left "an indelible imprint on the mind of the entire nation." Though the epicenter of this marvelously constructed book is San Francisco, Winchester covers much more than just the disaster. He discusses how this particular quake led to greater scientific study of quakes in an attempt to understand the movements of the earth. Trained at Oxford University as a geologist, Winchester is well qualified to discuss the subject, and he clearly explains plate tectonics theory (first introduced in 1968) and the creation of the San Andreas Fault, along with the geologic exploration of the American West in the late 19th century and the evolution of technology used to measure and predict earthquakes. He also covers the social and political shifts caused by the disaster, such as the way that Pentecostalists viewed the quake as "a message of divine approval" and used it to recruit new members into the church, and the rise in the local Chinese population. With many records destroyed in the fire, there was no way to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, and thus many more Chinese were granted citizenship than would have otherwise been. Filled with eyewitness accounts, vivid descriptions, crisp prose, and many delightful meanderings, A Crack in the Edge of the World is a thoroughly absorbing tale. --Shawn Carkonen
Product Description
Unleashed by ancient geologic forces, a magnitude 8.25 earthquake rocked San Francisco in the early hours of April 18, 1906. Less than a minute later, the city lay in ruins. Bestselling author Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities to this extraordinary event, exploring the legendary earthquake and fires that spread horror across San Francisco and northern California in 1906 as well as its startling impact on American history and, just as important, what science has recently revealed about the fascinating subterranean processes that produced it—and almost certainly will cause it to strike again.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 89 more reviews...
 Literature trumps history November 25, 2008
Literature trumps history
Simon Winchester writes with an admiral skill. His presentation of the geology and the contemporary reports of the San Francisco earthquake are intriguing, sometimes riveting. But his historical generalization are often far fetched or just simply inaccurate. Because I listened to the book on tape I did not make a list of all the times I gritted my teeth because of an overstatement. It began with odd comments on the history of science which mentioned something about big ideas versus the triviality of what used to be called bench science, the hard daily work of scientists accumulating knowledge. Winchester put down the latter while praising the former. Somehow the geologists prior to plate tectonics were undistinguished fact grubbers, while the grand theorists of that subject, along with Darwinian evolution, and maybe DNA were the real contributions to science. I guess Darwin's eight years of careful dissection of barnacles which were crucial to his ideas about evolution stand for little. In fact the plant collector and taxonomist Wallace built that dull series of thousands of careful boring observations into what we now know of as island biogeography, or the thousands of scatter experiments of the late 19th century became the theory of the atom. Here is where the demands of making interesting literature come in conflict with the complications of history.
A few instances I can recall from the book are the doubtful claim that San Francisco was sin city par excellence in the late 19th century. If I remember my Carl Sandburg well enough, I thought the painted ladies under street lamps in Chicago vied for that honor, or that the earthquake led to the ascendance of L.A. over Frisco in California. While Winchester does say there were other factors, he keeps reasserting the claim. What about the role of the movie industry and WWI and II's aircraft industry? These had nothing to do with the destruction of S. F. Or that as he claimed in his book on Krakatoa, for the origin of Muslim fundamentalism, somehow an apocalyptic cult's anticipation of a horrendous catastrophe was the beginnings of the Christian right. Father Coughlin's fascist Catholicism during the depression was hardly Pentecostal nor was the racism of protestant populism during the last quarter of the 19th century to be laid at the feet of the earthquake. Yet they are both constituents of the Christian right. The claim for Krakatoa again makes good wake-up reading but has nothing to do with Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia or fundamentalists in Singkiang in central Asian who preceded it and then raised their heads again under Chinese oppression. And what about the claim often made that Indonesian Mohamedism was the most secular in the world.
So while I had trouble with the way Winchester made up eye-opening historical claims to keep his narrative going, I couldn't help admiring the literary skill which he used to wrap many interesting things around a book which would have been one third as long had he just stuck to the earthquake, its causes and affects on people. I really liked the narrative of people's experience during the earthquake, the local geologists clocking it as it was happening, And Winchester did put in work to get material for the book. His final foray up the Alaska Highway to see the earthquake induced twists in the Alaska oil pipeline meant days of driving. But what did his offensive comments about living accommodations in Watson Lake have to do with the book. Although that route used to be my stomping grounds, his narration of his trip seemed irrelevant, mere filler. I kind of wondered why he didn't take the Cassiar Highway, a shorter but less historical route.
If I were to be a more responsible reviewer I might go back an underline every dubious historical claim but it is not worth it. The book is good light reading even if its depth is wanting. Charlie Fisher
Bogged down by details September 29, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is thoroughly researched and keeps as its primary focus a fascinating subject: the earthquake that leveled San Francisco in 1906. However, it may almost be TOO researched, as it shoots off on endless tangents about the process of seismography and the tectonic mechanics of earthquakes themselves. While this formula worked for the author's previous books, this one is bogged down by the tangential stuff and not enough focus is placed on the central subject - keeping the reader from really engaging the material.
As a resident of SF, I should have loved this. In the end, however, I just merely found it interesting.
 Informative and enjoyable September 5, 2008
This book is like Krakatoa in that Simon Winchester paints a picture of the era as well as the event, so that we can understand its context. This is very helpful since it is easy to assume our cultural context has always been. The author has an enjoyably detailed writing style, and builds successfully to the event and aftermath. Lots of science and lots of personal stories. Well worth reading.
Eclectic excursion through history and science August 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is four intertwined topics in one book, which means that you get either a highly informative amalgamation or a confusing muddle, depending on your personal taste. I'm inclined toward the former assessment, although I preferred Winchester's writing in his earlier book on Krakatoa.
- The main story, of course, is the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. But other than a brief scene-setter at the beginning of the book, the earthquake doesn't burst into the narrative until Chapter 10 (p. 243).
- Another story is the geologic and human settlement history of California. It's an interesting sidebar, which paints a more vivid picture of developments such as the 1849 Gold Rush than I ever got in history class, but far more than was necessary to set the stage for the 1906 earthquake.
- Yet another story is Winchester's travelogue, a personal journey across the North American tectonic plate, which starts in Iceland and ends at the San Andreas fault (with a side trip to Alaska). Again, this has its interesting passages, but it made me wonder if Winchester was auditioning for his own show on the Travel Channel.
- Additionally, the book covers what I'll call Seismology for Dummies. The history, the science, and (in a 17-page appendix) the measurement standards of this earthshaking discipline provide essential background for the main story, which had profound scientific implications as well as human consequences.
Winchester's narrative frequently goes off on tangents, and there are scores of footnotes offering factoids that may or may not be of interest to the reader. Mostly I found these intellectual wanderings fun to read, although sometimes it became a bit too much. But overall, I learned a lot about an event of which I knew only a little, and the reading experience proved to be engaging and thought-provoking.
Fault-line roulette stops on San Francisco, 1906 August 3, 2008
Winchester is a very good popularizer of science, and he writes a meandering account of the San Francisco earthquake that covers the globe from Norway to Alaska in telling the story.
His account of the underground geology of the western states is fascinating, lending plausibility to the thought that, if not about to slide into the Pacific Ocean, California is at least sitting on top of a fast-moving (as tectonic plates go) fault-line merry-go-round about to spin it into some form of disaster.
As he did in his account of Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, Winchester throws in a dose of anti-Christianity (blaming the San Francisco earthquake for the despicable--to him--rise of Pentecostalism), then more bizarrely (but perhaps understandable given his bias) attempts to lend some credence to the lunatic-fringe theory of Gaia. It adds nothing to his account, and were he not blinded by his anti-Christian hatred, would clearly strike him as unnecessary and damaging to his scientific mindset.
That aside, Winchester tells a cracking good story, and makes the difficult ideas understandable and interesting.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
