A Crack in the Edge of the World. A book about the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, kindly donated to the library by the sister at Christmas (still have some to read!). This was an interesting book, if a slow starter. Winchester opens by briefly discussing the geological background (as we know it at present!) to earthquakes - plate tectonics, and magma and that kind of thing.
But it moves along (perhaps a little slowly....) to a brief history of the city of San Fran, and how it built up during the gold rush and so on. This is when the book starts to get interesting, and outlined are some of the "planning" issues that contributed to the wholesale devastation suffered by the city following the earthquake and subsequent fire - such as building on filled land and lax building standards.
On it goes to discuss contemporary accounts of the events of the day in 1906 when the earthquake hits. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the book and by and large it seems well researched and well written.
One comment I feel needs to be highlighted and I'm not sure how it impacts on my view of the book. At one point in the book the author refers to an Irish-born engineer named Robert Mallet. Later on in the book, there is a reference in a similar context (coming up with the term seismograph) to British engineer, Robert Mallet.
The wikipedia link for Robert Mallet (who interestingly built the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse off Cape Clear, West Cork - take the boat trip if you can!) makes no British claim.
That disappointed me I must say and whilst I finished the book, it was really only because I started. I felt it was a clue, tainting the book and making me wonder if perhaps other information presented in the book was false. If it was British in both references I'll wager I'd not have noticed, but I did!
Overall, for reasonably interesting subject matter, and an improving style towards the end of the book, I'd say this is a fair book. But I can't recommend it to anybody other than dedicated earthquake fans who might be able to read the book with the required grain of salt.
But it moves along (perhaps a little slowly....) to a brief history of the city of San Fran, and how it built up during the gold rush and so on. This is when the book starts to get interesting, and outlined are some of the "planning" issues that contributed to the wholesale devastation suffered by the city following the earthquake and subsequent fire - such as building on filled land and lax building standards.
On it goes to discuss contemporary accounts of the events of the day in 1906 when the earthquake hits. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the book and by and large it seems well researched and well written.
One comment I feel needs to be highlighted and I'm not sure how it impacts on my view of the book. At one point in the book the author refers to an Irish-born engineer named Robert Mallet. Later on in the book, there is a reference in a similar context (coming up with the term seismograph) to British engineer, Robert Mallet.
The wikipedia link for Robert Mallet (who interestingly built the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse off Cape Clear, West Cork - take the boat trip if you can!) makes no British claim.
That disappointed me I must say and whilst I finished the book, it was really only because I started. I felt it was a clue, tainting the book and making me wonder if perhaps other information presented in the book was false. If it was British in both references I'll wager I'd not have noticed, but I did!
Overall, for reasonably interesting subject matter, and an improving style towards the end of the book, I'd say this is a fair book. But I can't recommend it to anybody other than dedicated earthquake fans who might be able to read the book with the required grain of salt.
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