[He buries his account of that fateful day some 250 pages into the book, choosing to explain how the quake occurred, why it happened and, most appropriately, warn people of its coming inevitability. In other words, this is a geology book - not a social history.] If by writing a book like this I could increase awareness of geology and the reasons behind earthquakes and help preparedness, ... I'd be very happy. |
A Crack in the Edge of the World |
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, |
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. |
and the beginning of the beginning of what is now the most populous Islamic state on earth, Indonesia. |
Cement was a relatively new material at that time, |
I would argue that William Smith turned a lot of things on their head with this map, which was a hugely important and profound development, |
No one knew in those days that [parts of the world] were moving, |
priests roved around the ruins, selecting at random those they believed guilty of heresy and thus to blame for annoying the Divine, who in turn had ordered up the disaster. The priests had them hanged on the spot. |
The comparisons to Katrina are numerous and just eerie, |
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, |
The San Francisco earthquake was not caused by God, |
This may sound silly, but I attach a little counter to the corner of my computer so I know I have to produce, say, 100,000 words by December. If I'm ahead one day, I take a break; if I'm behind, I keep working. |