Books : A Crack in the Edge of the World CD: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
from: HarperAudio
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Binding: Audio CD
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.461051
EAN: 9780060823870
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
ISBN: 0060823879
Label: HarperAudio
Manufacturer: HarperAudio
Number Of Items: 10
Publication Date: October 01, 2005
Publisher: HarperAudio
Release Date: October 04, 2005
Sales Rank: 373204
Studio: HarperAudio
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The international bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force.
In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of other towns were overcome by an earthquake registering 8.25 on the Richter scale, resulting from a rupture in the San Andreas fault. Lasting little more than a minute, the earthquake wrecked 490 blocks, toppled a total of 25,000 buildings, broke open gas mains, cut off electric power lines, and effectively destroyed the gold rush capital that had stood there for a half century.
Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities -- as well as his unique understanding of geology -- to this extraordinary event, exploring not only what happened in northern California in 1906 but what we have learned since about the geological underpinnings that caused the earthquake in the first place. A Crack in the Edge of the World is the definitive account of the San Francisco earthquake and a fascinating exploration of a legendary event that changed the way we look at the planet on which we live.
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
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I finished reading this book yesterday. It is only the second book by Simon Winshester that I have read. The first was "Krakatoa," which a friend loaned me to read. I had mixed feelings about "Krakatoa" -- parts were really good but I felt that Winchester went off on too many tangents. In contrast, "A Crack in the Edge of the World" worked for me -- despite many reviews here which echo the complaint I had about "Krakatoa." For me, the best parts of the book were the road trip before and after he got to California. It reminded me a little of John McPhee's "Annals of the Former World." (Winchester pays a nice compliment to McPhee's "Assembling California" and his portrayal of Eldridge Moores. If you haven't read "Annals" I highly recommend it -- and "Assembling California" was my favorite part of "Annals.") For me, the slowest part of Winchester's book was the long chapter on the 1906 earthquake itself. I enjoyed much more Winchester's descriptions and visits to the sites of other historic earthquakes (Charleston, New Madrid, etc.) and the "Ice and Fire" epilogue. To me this book was more than just a popular author churning out another one for his publisher and bank account. It seemed like a labor of love. (I also found Winchester's dedication of this book to the late Iris Chang touching, as I had read Chang's "The Chinese in America" not long before.)
FWIW this is my very first book review on Amazon (or anywhere else). I almost always browse the Amazon reviews before ... Read More
Rating:  -
This British author likes rocks better than he likes Americans. Whenever Americans are mentioned it is to tell how they were stupid, greedy, liars or oafish. Surely somebody somewhere in the entire story of the San Francisco earthquake performed a kind act, or had a good insight. It gets tiresome and irritating to hear Americans so uniformly bashed.
It's also surprising how little of the book is devoted to the quake. There is a lot about the formation of the planet and the continents, plate tectonics and kinds of rocks. He almost skips over the quake in comparison: the plates moved, the ground shook and everything burnt up is about the size of it. There is no detail at all of what the people went through, how they fought the fire or who they were except to say they were all corrupt before the fire and stupid afterwards. If you think I am overstating this, listen to the audio CD. The author himself reads his book and the arch tone is unmistakable. Skip this book.
Rating: -
This is another excellent story about the linkages among geography, geology, science, and history -- and also in this case, the arts -- by Simon Winchester. Although the main story is about the Great San Francisco Earthquake, the book spreads its arms and brings in relevant information about Greenland, Iceland, Missouri, Oklahoma, Southern California, Alaska, South America, England, and other places. It's a well researched, well written, and intellectually stimulating book. I've listened to the audio CD version several times and will probably listen to it again several more.
Rating:  -
Simon Winchester always gives an exhaustive review of his subject, and A Crack in the Edge of the World CD: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 is no exception. A geologist by training, he follows up his other books on that theme -- Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.), The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology -- with this compendium on the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906
Winchester jumps off with the view of our planet from the moon, and launches into what he calls the New Geology. A quick preview of the earthquake in question, and then we move out of the prologue and into chapter 1: a catalogue of that very dangerous year, 1906; a year similar in the scope of its farflung disasters to 2004, which began with an earthquake in Iran and ended with the terrible Sumatran tsunami.
Before returning to San Francisco, Winchester elucidates the pioneers and principles of the New Geology; in a few words, Pangaea and plate tectonics. The pushmi-pullyu of giant plates grinding and subducting and spreading over the eons. Earthquake and volcano. He takes great pleasure in standing on the eastern edge of the North American plate, in Iceland, and then driving to the western edge at the San Andreas faultline. Along the way he mentions the strange phenomena that can occur in the middle of a land mass; think just-baked piecrust, wrinkling as it cools on a rack. But the main events ... Read More
Rating:  -
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 ... Read More
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