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Magnitude 8 : earthquakes and life along the San Andreas Fault

by Fradkin, Philip L.

Format: Print Book 1998
Availability: Available at 1 Library 1 of 1 copy

Available (1)
Location Collection Call #
CLP - Main Library Second Floor - Non-fiction QE535.2.U6 F7 1998
Location  CLP - Main Library
 
Collection  Second Floor - Non-fiction
 
Call Number  QE535.2.U6 F7 1998
 
 

Summary
The archetypal natural disaster defined on the verge of the millennium. To understand the cataclysmic earthquake that will tear California apart one day, Philip L. Fradkin has written a dramatic history of earthquakes and an eloquent guide to the San Andreas Fault, the world's best-known tectonic landscape. The author includes vivid stories of earthquakes elsewhere: in New England, the central Mississippi River Valley, New York City, Europe, and the Far East. Always, he combines human and natural drama to place the reader at the epicenter of the most instantaneous and unpredictable of all the Earth's phenomena. Following the San Andreas Fault from Cape Mecino to Mexico--canoeing the fault line in northern California and walking underground through the Hollywood fault--noted environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin reclaims the human dimensions of earthquakes from the science-dominated accounts.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Geologists explain earthquakes with technical jargon, arcane measurements, and complex charts. Fradkin speaks a different language, the universal language of fascination--and fear. He probes the earthquake's mysteries with science but also with legend, rumor, haiku, and soliloquy. During 20 years of living on one of the earth's most treacherous fault zones--the San Andreas--he has talked with seismologists, earthquake survivors, historians, and doomsayers. But mostly he has communed with the earth itself, puzzling over its tortured rock layers, surveying the ruins of its past tremors, and trying to divine the secrets of its incomprehensible fury. He marvels at the ways that fury has shaped the culture and traditions of earthquake country. Yet it is his deep anxiety about the future--the day when California is finally rocked by a truly monstrous quake--that pulls his narrative taut. A valuable addition to any library's popular science collection. --Bryce Christensen"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "The history of California and Californians is inextricably intertwined with earthquakesÄas is made abundantly clear in Fradkin's new book (after The Seven States of California), an expansive seismological trek along the San Andreas Fault line. Fradkin covers California's quakes from early theories to state-of-the-art science, from the 1857 Fort Tejon quake to the 1994 Northridge quake. There is much hard science here, detailing everything from standard theories on quakes past and present to debates within the seismological community. Some of the most fascinating sections of the book deal not with geology or seismology, however, but with human reactions, both personal and civil, to the destructive potential of quakes. Fradkin reports that during the rebuilding of San Francisco following the 1906 quake, building codes were relaxed to hasten reconstruction of the city and references to the quake were deleted in subsequent writings, focusing instead on the ensuing fire. There is also excellent coverage of quakes as media events, including the Loma Prieta quake in 1989, which interrupted the World Series. Fradkin tackles his topic expertly and with a keen sense that earthquakes are social as well as geological events that have shaped not only the landscape of the state but also the attitudes of those who live there. Agent, Brandt & Brandt. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved"
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Earthquakes -- California, Southern.
San Andreas Fault (Calif.)
Publisher New York :Henry Holt,1998
Edition 1st ed.
Other Titles Magnitude eight
Language English
Notes "A John Macrae book."
Description xii, 336 pages : map ; 25 cm
Bibliography Notes Includes bibliographical references (pages [279]-315) and index.
ISBN 0805046968 (hb : alk. paper)
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