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A Crack in the Edge of the World
s/t: America & the Great California Earthquake of 1906
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."
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
Audio CD
First published October 4, 2005
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7786 people want to read
About the author
Simon Winchester
92 books2,247 followersSimon Winchester, OBE, is a British writer, journalist and broadcaster who resides in the United States. Through his career at The Guardian, Winchester covered numerous significant events including Bloody Sunday and the Watergate Scandal. As an author, Simon Winchester has written or contributed to over a dozen nonfiction books and authored one novel, and his articles appear in several travel publications including Condé Nast Traveler, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
In 1969, Winchester joined The Guardian, first as regional correspondent based in Newcastle upon Tyne, but was later assigned to be the Northern Ireland Correspondent. Winchester's time in Northern Ireland placed him around several events of The Troubles, including the events of Bloody Sunday and the Belfast Hour of Terror.
After leaving Northern Ireland in 1972, Winchester was briefly assigned to Calcutta before becoming The Guardian's American correspondent in Washington, D.C., where Winchester covered news ranging from the end of Richard Nixon's administration to the start of Jimmy Carter's presidency. In 1982, while working as the Chief Foreign Feature Writer for The Sunday Times, Winchester was on location for the invasion of the Falklands Islands by Argentine forces. Suspected of being a spy, Winchester was held as a prisoner in Tierra del Fuego for three months.
Winchester's first book, In Holy Terror, was published by Faber and Faber in 1975. The book drew heavily on his first-hand experiences during the turmoils in Ulster. In 1976, Winchester published his second book, American Heartbeat, which dealt with his personal travels through the American heartland. Winchester's third book, Prison Diary, was a recounting of his imprisonment at Tierra del Fuego during the Falklands War and, as noted by Dr Jules Smith, is responsible for his rise to prominence in the United Kingdom. Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Winchester produced several travel books, most of which dealt with Asian and Pacific locations including Korea, Hong Kong, and the Yangtze River.
Winchester's first truly successful book was The Professor and the Madman (1998), published by Penguin UK as The Surgeon of Crowthorne. Telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the book was a New York Times Best Seller, and Mel Gibson optioned the rights to a film version, likely to be directed by John Boorman.
Though Winchester still writes travel books, he has repeated the narrative non-fiction form he used in The Professor and the Madman several times, many of which ended in books placed on best sellers lists. His 2001 book, The Map that Changed the World, focused on geologist William Smith and was Whichester's second New York Times best seller. The year 2003 saw Winchester release another book on the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Meaning of Everything, as well as the best-selling Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded. Winchester followed Krakatoa's volcano with San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in A Crack in the Edge of the World. The Man Who Loved China (2008) retells the life of eccentric Cambridge scholar Joseph Needham, who helped to expose China to the western world. Winchester's latest book, The Alice Behind Wonderland, was released March 11, 2011.
- source Wikipedia
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October 18, 2019
”The planet very briefly shrugged”
1906...the shrug.
We have all had those professors who have spent a lifetime sticking interesting facts into their heads. These facts may be pertinent to their particular line of enquiry for which they are considered an expert, or they might be random interesting tidbits of knowledge that have been squirrelled away for future research. They might even be just fascinating stories that may have very little to do with anything else.
Except of course that everything is connected. Degrees of separation and all that.
I had this Russian history professor at the University of Arizona who was decades removed from his best years, and nearing the time when someone was going to start talking to him about all the time he will have to devout to research...once he retires. The hook, in other words, was coming soon.
His diseased spine bent him forward. It required some effort for him to raise his head far enough to look someone in the eye. He also listed a bit to the right when he walked, reminding me of Stevenson’s Hyde. He had a full beard, still naturally black despite his age, which made him look very Russian, and therefore, very authentic when discussing Ivan the Terrible or the Cossacks. He would pace back and forth with his hands behind his back gazing at the floor as he lectured. He always wore this black coat. I was once talking to him after class when he fumbled open the black buttons with thick fingers and flapped the jacket open. Hot air escaped as if he’d just opened an Egyptian tomb. Sweat stained his shirt from his armpit to his waist, and the fetid odor of fennel marinated in vodka and stale socks blossomed in the room.
He was a terrible rambler, skipping from one point in history to another, and throwing in bits and pieces of history outside of Russia as well. One day a student interrupted him for the second time to ask, yet again, if what he was discussing was going to be on the test. He asked her very kindly to leave the room and to please drop the class.
I was slogging my way through the class textbook, so I really didn’t need him to regurgitate what I was already reading. Mostly, I just wanted to stay quiet, and let him talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. Most people expect and want things presented to them in a linear fashion, so I was not surprised to see the class shrink in size as students abandoned ship for the lifeboats with the hope that some other teacher would provide them with more pleasant waters to float in.
Now the reason I tell this story is that this book reminded me of that professor. Simon Winchester has written a book that is not easy to categorize.
Is it simply a book of random musings, loosely contained to a theme by duct tape and bailing wire? Is it an indulgent travelogue? Is it a 101 geology seminar? Is Kenny G playing saxophone in the background?
I’d have to answer yes to these questions...well...not Kenny G. Let’s not be ridiculous.
The subtitle of the book is America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. From perusing quickly through other reviews, there were many readers who were very frustrated with the fact that the book was not focused on the topic they were most interested in reading about... the Great Earthquake of 1906. The title is mildly misleading, but then again I think there was an editor, a publisher, and a writer who were unsure of exactly how to categorize this book and decided to simplify things for marketing purposes.
The Eastern edge of the North American Plate reminds me of fortresses from another time.
Winchester does discuss the San Francisco disaster, but before that he takes us on a trip to Iceland, to the eastern edge of the North American Plate, which also happens to be the location of some of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies. The edge forms a dramatic, though stable geography that certainly lends grandeur to any gathering. We cross the U.S. where he discusses the 1886 Charleston quake, the rumblings that happened at New Madrid, Missouri, in 1811-12, and Meers, Oklahoma, where there is a beautiful fault visible from the air. He climbs Mount Diablo and catches a clear enough day to be able to gaze upon San Francisco.
”I squinted through a big brass telescope that had been obligingly placed on the parapet. My feeling that this was a confection of untoward and only half-urban-looking delicacy was confirmed by the magnifying lenses. How tightly San Francisco appeared to cling on to its hillsides: One would imagine knuckles whitened, sinews straining, teeth gritted.”
The San Andreas Fault, the Western edge of the The North American Plate, much more volatile than the Eastern edge.
We slide over to Parkfield, California, which right now is the seismic capital of the world with numerous earthquakes per month that range up and down the richter scale. We go to Alaska to see where the trans-Alaska pipeline crosses the Denali Fault. The pipeline is crooked like the back of my professor and placed on rollers that will hopefully give the pipeline enough give to not rupture if an earthquake does occur.
He does spend a decent amount of time talking about the 8.25 earthquake that forever changed the cityscape of San Francisco. He tells individual stories, some of them by famous people, some of them just incredibly unlucky people like Paul Pickney who had the distinction of surviving the 1884 Charleston trembler and the 1906 San Francisco quake. One of my favorite stories involved a four year old Ansel Adams who was thrown to the ground during the quake and cracked his nose. His parents and doctor decided not to fix the nose, and it became the most rugged feature of his famous, classical profile.
28,188 buildings were destroyed. It was stated, to quell fears of future and present residents, that most of the destruction came from fire (error of man) instead of from the earthquake (God’s wrath). They believe over 3000 people perished, but due to a conspiracy of suppression of the actual numbers only 700 were officially claimed. For the city to rebuild they needed more people to come West, and they quite effectively controlled the narrative of the extent of the destruction.
It is a rare opportunity indeed to have your picture taken in front of such devastation. Irrefutable evidence that you were there.
I thought it was interesting how suicide rates went way down after the earthquake. People suddenly had something more, something larger than themselves, to worry about. If their lives were stressful or pathetic or wretched before the earthquake, suddenly all of that was swept away, along with quite possibly all that they owned in the world. I have often thought that, if everyone had to worry more about day to day living, many of our psychological problems would be reduced in size or even possibly eliminated. I think we have too much time to think about our current state of affairs, many of them beyond our control; and yet, we are swimming in a relative lap of luxury and safety compared to most of human history. It is so difficult to be happy. Maybe we own too much and try to do too much.
The San Francisco quake, called the Loma Prieta Earthquake, that occurred in 1989 was not, as everyone hoped, a releasing of pressure along the San Andreas. ”If the assumption about Loma Prieta is correct, then the last time the San Andreas Fault moved in Northern California was not in 1989 but in fact a very long time ago, back in 1906--which means that, with the steady annual movement of its foundations, the two plates are now nearly 200 inches, about 17 feet, out of kilter. This means that an unimaginably enormous amount of kinetic energy is currently stored in the rocks of the Bay Area; one day, and probably very soon, this energy will all be relieved, without warning.”
I finished reading this book at about 12:55AM in the morning of November 19th, 2015. I was finally drifting off to sleep after sifting through some of the last pieces of information that Winchester had stuck in my head when I felt or heard a jolt that brought me wide awake. The window in the bathroom rattled. I didn’t for one second think it was a truck rumbling through the neighborhood. I knew it was an earthquake. My daughter texted me from her apartment in Wichita. “Did you feel that?”
Oh yeah, I felt it alright.
I found out the next morning that it was a 4.7 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter just south of us in Cherokee, Oklahoma. To say this book moved me would be an understatement. The timing couldn’t have been better for the universe to talk to me.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
1906...the shrug.
We have all had those professors who have spent a lifetime sticking interesting facts into their heads. These facts may be pertinent to their particular line of enquiry for which they are considered an expert, or they might be random interesting tidbits of knowledge that have been squirrelled away for future research. They might even be just fascinating stories that may have very little to do with anything else.
Except of course that everything is connected. Degrees of separation and all that.
I had this Russian history professor at the University of Arizona who was decades removed from his best years, and nearing the time when someone was going to start talking to him about all the time he will have to devout to research...once he retires. The hook, in other words, was coming soon.
His diseased spine bent him forward. It required some effort for him to raise his head far enough to look someone in the eye. He also listed a bit to the right when he walked, reminding me of Stevenson’s Hyde. He had a full beard, still naturally black despite his age, which made him look very Russian, and therefore, very authentic when discussing Ivan the Terrible or the Cossacks. He would pace back and forth with his hands behind his back gazing at the floor as he lectured. He always wore this black coat. I was once talking to him after class when he fumbled open the black buttons with thick fingers and flapped the jacket open. Hot air escaped as if he’d just opened an Egyptian tomb. Sweat stained his shirt from his armpit to his waist, and the fetid odor of fennel marinated in vodka and stale socks blossomed in the room.
He was a terrible rambler, skipping from one point in history to another, and throwing in bits and pieces of history outside of Russia as well. One day a student interrupted him for the second time to ask, yet again, if what he was discussing was going to be on the test. He asked her very kindly to leave the room and to please drop the class.
I was slogging my way through the class textbook, so I really didn’t need him to regurgitate what I was already reading. Mostly, I just wanted to stay quiet, and let him talk about whatever he wanted to talk about. Most people expect and want things presented to them in a linear fashion, so I was not surprised to see the class shrink in size as students abandoned ship for the lifeboats with the hope that some other teacher would provide them with more pleasant waters to float in.
Now the reason I tell this story is that this book reminded me of that professor. Simon Winchester has written a book that is not easy to categorize.
Is it simply a book of random musings, loosely contained to a theme by duct tape and bailing wire? Is it an indulgent travelogue? Is it a 101 geology seminar? Is Kenny G playing saxophone in the background?
I’d have to answer yes to these questions...well...not Kenny G. Let’s not be ridiculous.
The subtitle of the book is America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. From perusing quickly through other reviews, there were many readers who were very frustrated with the fact that the book was not focused on the topic they were most interested in reading about... the Great Earthquake of 1906. The title is mildly misleading, but then again I think there was an editor, a publisher, and a writer who were unsure of exactly how to categorize this book and decided to simplify things for marketing purposes.
The Eastern edge of the North American Plate reminds me of fortresses from another time.
Winchester does discuss the San Francisco disaster, but before that he takes us on a trip to Iceland, to the eastern edge of the North American Plate, which also happens to be the location of some of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies. The edge forms a dramatic, though stable geography that certainly lends grandeur to any gathering. We cross the U.S. where he discusses the 1886 Charleston quake, the rumblings that happened at New Madrid, Missouri, in 1811-12, and Meers, Oklahoma, where there is a beautiful fault visible from the air. He climbs Mount Diablo and catches a clear enough day to be able to gaze upon San Francisco.
”I squinted through a big brass telescope that had been obligingly placed on the parapet. My feeling that this was a confection of untoward and only half-urban-looking delicacy was confirmed by the magnifying lenses. How tightly San Francisco appeared to cling on to its hillsides: One would imagine knuckles whitened, sinews straining, teeth gritted.”
The San Andreas Fault, the Western edge of the The North American Plate, much more volatile than the Eastern edge.
We slide over to Parkfield, California, which right now is the seismic capital of the world with numerous earthquakes per month that range up and down the richter scale. We go to Alaska to see where the trans-Alaska pipeline crosses the Denali Fault. The pipeline is crooked like the back of my professor and placed on rollers that will hopefully give the pipeline enough give to not rupture if an earthquake does occur.
He does spend a decent amount of time talking about the 8.25 earthquake that forever changed the cityscape of San Francisco. He tells individual stories, some of them by famous people, some of them just incredibly unlucky people like Paul Pickney who had the distinction of surviving the 1884 Charleston trembler and the 1906 San Francisco quake. One of my favorite stories involved a four year old Ansel Adams who was thrown to the ground during the quake and cracked his nose. His parents and doctor decided not to fix the nose, and it became the most rugged feature of his famous, classical profile.
28,188 buildings were destroyed. It was stated, to quell fears of future and present residents, that most of the destruction came from fire (error of man) instead of from the earthquake (God’s wrath). They believe over 3000 people perished, but due to a conspiracy of suppression of the actual numbers only 700 were officially claimed. For the city to rebuild they needed more people to come West, and they quite effectively controlled the narrative of the extent of the destruction.
It is a rare opportunity indeed to have your picture taken in front of such devastation. Irrefutable evidence that you were there.
I thought it was interesting how suicide rates went way down after the earthquake. People suddenly had something more, something larger than themselves, to worry about. If their lives were stressful or pathetic or wretched before the earthquake, suddenly all of that was swept away, along with quite possibly all that they owned in the world. I have often thought that, if everyone had to worry more about day to day living, many of our psychological problems would be reduced in size or even possibly eliminated. I think we have too much time to think about our current state of affairs, many of them beyond our control; and yet, we are swimming in a relative lap of luxury and safety compared to most of human history. It is so difficult to be happy. Maybe we own too much and try to do too much.
The San Francisco quake, called the Loma Prieta Earthquake, that occurred in 1989 was not, as everyone hoped, a releasing of pressure along the San Andreas. ”If the assumption about Loma Prieta is correct, then the last time the San Andreas Fault moved in Northern California was not in 1989 but in fact a very long time ago, back in 1906--which means that, with the steady annual movement of its foundations, the two plates are now nearly 200 inches, about 17 feet, out of kilter. This means that an unimaginably enormous amount of kinetic energy is currently stored in the rocks of the Bay Area; one day, and probably very soon, this energy will all be relieved, without warning.”
I finished reading this book at about 12:55AM in the morning of November 19th, 2015. I was finally drifting off to sleep after sifting through some of the last pieces of information that Winchester had stuck in my head when I felt or heard a jolt that brought me wide awake. The window in the bathroom rattled. I didn’t for one second think it was a truck rumbling through the neighborhood. I knew it was an earthquake. My daughter texted me from her apartment in Wichita. “Did you feel that?”
Oh yeah, I felt it alright.
I found out the next morning that it was a 4.7 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter just south of us in Cherokee, Oklahoma. To say this book moved me would be an understatement. The timing couldn’t have been better for the universe to talk to me.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
April 27, 2018
The story of how I started reading this book begins outside San Antonio, as I guided my Subaru Outback onto Interstate-10, set the cruise control, and settled back for the long, empty ride to El Paso. It was August 2010, and my wife and I were midway through our Great 2010 Unplanned Battlefield Tour Road Trip Extravaganza. After visiting Shiloh, Vicksburg, San Jacinto and the Alamo, I acquiesced to my wife’s plea that we see the Grand Canyon since a) it was the Grand Canyon and b) it wasn’t a battlefield (frankly, the battlefield-centric part of the road trip was my idea).
Anyway, we had 700 miles to go to our overnight destination in Silver City, and precious few radio stations to help us pass the time. (Though I contend that my vivid retelling of the slaughter at Goliad was worth at least an hour to an hour and a half). Thus, my wife put in an audio version of Simon Winchester’s A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 to bide the time.
The first thing we noticed was that Simon narrated this himself, in his rich, Oxford-ian accent, which sounded suspiciously like an average American actor attempting to impersonate a snooty English butler. The second thing we noticed was that his narrative didn't seem to be going anywhere. If Simon wasn’t (putatively) reading from his own book, I would’ve sworn that he’d had a couple glasses of wine and started rambling like Grandpa Simpson.
The audio book was so bad it was funny. But after awhile, it was just bad.
Accordingly, my wife hit the eject button, and we settled for the tense silence that comes from driving 1,000 miles and visiting four separate battlefields in four days. (The Days Inn in Silver City was a fine cap to that day; before we went to sleep, we played a game called Guess How Many Drifters Were Murdered In This Hotel).
I’m stubborn when it comes to books. I don’t like to leave things unfinished. Sometime after we’d returned home, vowing to never speak of my total and absolute meltdown on the Kansas Turnpike (I have to pay to drive across Kansas!? I wouldn’t go to Kansas if they paid me!), I purchased A Crack in the Edge of the World from a used book store.
It was the same digressionary, drifting storytelling as before, except this time it was up to my brain to provide the British accent. (And unfortunately, my brain often confuses British and Scottish accents).
The book description and the subtitle might lead you to believe it is about the Great San Francisco Earthquake. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong. It’s there, sort of, buried in the midst of a steam-of-conscious verbal ejaculation that mimics Kerouac at his most frenzied, except that Winchester is fueled by ego and snobbery rather than mescaline. Mostly, though, this book is about Simon Winchester, and how he is smarter than you, more well traveled than you, and generally better than you in every particular facet of life.
A Crack at the Edge of the World begins with Simon conning his publisher to pay him to travel across the world on a geologic journey, visiting places of seismic importance. Never mind that this mainly consists of Simon driving across the United States making condescending remarks about middle-America, he sure seems to be having fun! (Maybe I’m a bit jealous… I mean, I’d certainly love the chance to get paid to drive around looking down my noses at people and reciting various arcane bits of trivia. Hell, I’d do that for free).
Look, I’m not saying Simon isn’t smart. He is. He certainly, most definitely, is intelligent. I know, because he told me. He also has a strong background in geology, so he can articulately expound about all the complex business going on beneath our feet. He goes on and on with erudition and awe about the collisions of tectonic plates and magma and the supercontinent of Pangaea (which will be the foundation for the failed Fox drama I am currently scripting), all of which is illustrated with maps and drawings and a picture of the general store in Meers, Oklahoma, because it’s just so quaint and rustic to his classically trained mind. This is all well and good, except that geology is boring except for the earthquakes so get to the damn earthquake already!
Simon gets to the earthquake, rest assured. It just takes 234 pages of meanders, digressions, and entirely useless footnotes about topics completely unrelated to anything remotely touched-upon in this book.
The ceaseless introduction of know-it-all non sequiturs might not have been so annoying in a book of more elegance. And to be charitable, there are some nice sequences, including Simon’s description of a night solo-camping on Mount Diablo. The problem, though, is that these detours are interspersed with a lot of seismological jargon that requires slow, careful reading to make any sense. The geology lessons, combined with the anecdotal side-streets, combine to slow the story’s pace to that of the continental drift.
This is a short book that feels long, and it feels long for all the wrong reasons. As my frustrations grew, I imagined myself driving a car with Simon Winchester and Jonathan Lipnicki (the little boy from Jerry Maguire) as passengers.
The section of the earthquake is necessarily disappointing. It’s not bad; not at all. It just underwhelms. This is due to the book’s structure, which does not allow for any narrative momentum. By the time San Francisco gets shook, we have learned all about the San Andreas Fault, Simon’s time as a grad student in Iceland, and the history of the State of California. What we haven’t received is any reason why we should care about the people of San Francisco, who serve mainly as shadowy witnesses to an event that itself becomes a backdrop to the author’s dog-and-pony show.
Interestingly, the thing you tend to take away from this account of the earthquake – and which is echoed in other sources – is that most of the death and damage came from the resulting fire. This tends to undercut Simon’s compulsive need to talk about and describe seismology. He keeps warning us that a super-earthquake is going to knock California into the sea; yet he never acknowledges that the story he just told is a cautionary tale of building codes and effective fire response. (To be sure, no one ever went broke warning of our impending doom. All Cassandras – like the original Cassandra – will eventually be right; tragedy is always right around the corner).
Despite what I’ve written, I am predisposed to enjoy a book like this. I am fond of the small literary sub-genre of travelogue-histories, in which a writer goes on a personal journey to visit all the artifacts (and the curators watching over them) that combined to make a historical event. Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation, The Wordy Shipmates) is a delightful tour guide, and her books brim with chirpiness and humor. Tony Horowitz (Confederates in the Attic, A Voyage Long and Strange) brings a more sober, journalistic discipline to his work, finding unforgettable modern characters who are almost mystically connected to the past.
Simon Winchester is just as talented as Vowell and Horowitz. But he’s also as likeable as the Harvard-Bar-grad-student in Good Will Hunting who smarmily recites the works of Gordon Wood to embarrass Ben Affleck.
I would love to take a road trip with Sarah Vowell or Tony Horowitz. I tried to take a road trip with Simon Winchester. We heard his voice on the radio and quickly gave up. If he’d actually been with us, sitting in the middle of the backseat, drinking a Slurpee and extemporizing about every historical marker we zipped past, I would have tossed him from the car.
I’m certain that Simon Winchester would survive being thrown from a moving vehicle. He is, after all, the smartest person alive. Also, I’m certain that – even alone on a deserted highway – he would’ve found a curious bunny to lecture.
And that bunny would listen for awhile, hoping that this odd man with the refined accent would get to a point. Finally, the bunny would give up and bound away. And the night would go on, the stars would come out, and Simon Winchester would still be speaking into the void.
Anyway, we had 700 miles to go to our overnight destination in Silver City, and precious few radio stations to help us pass the time. (Though I contend that my vivid retelling of the slaughter at Goliad was worth at least an hour to an hour and a half). Thus, my wife put in an audio version of Simon Winchester’s A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 to bide the time.
The first thing we noticed was that Simon narrated this himself, in his rich, Oxford-ian accent, which sounded suspiciously like an average American actor attempting to impersonate a snooty English butler. The second thing we noticed was that his narrative didn't seem to be going anywhere. If Simon wasn’t (putatively) reading from his own book, I would’ve sworn that he’d had a couple glasses of wine and started rambling like Grandpa Simpson.
The audio book was so bad it was funny. But after awhile, it was just bad.
Accordingly, my wife hit the eject button, and we settled for the tense silence that comes from driving 1,000 miles and visiting four separate battlefields in four days. (The Days Inn in Silver City was a fine cap to that day; before we went to sleep, we played a game called Guess How Many Drifters Were Murdered In This Hotel).
I’m stubborn when it comes to books. I don’t like to leave things unfinished. Sometime after we’d returned home, vowing to never speak of my total and absolute meltdown on the Kansas Turnpike (I have to pay to drive across Kansas!? I wouldn’t go to Kansas if they paid me!), I purchased A Crack in the Edge of the World from a used book store.
It was the same digressionary, drifting storytelling as before, except this time it was up to my brain to provide the British accent. (And unfortunately, my brain often confuses British and Scottish accents).
The book description and the subtitle might lead you to believe it is about the Great San Francisco Earthquake. You wouldn’t be entirely wrong. It’s there, sort of, buried in the midst of a steam-of-conscious verbal ejaculation that mimics Kerouac at his most frenzied, except that Winchester is fueled by ego and snobbery rather than mescaline. Mostly, though, this book is about Simon Winchester, and how he is smarter than you, more well traveled than you, and generally better than you in every particular facet of life.
A Crack at the Edge of the World begins with Simon conning his publisher to pay him to travel across the world on a geologic journey, visiting places of seismic importance. Never mind that this mainly consists of Simon driving across the United States making condescending remarks about middle-America, he sure seems to be having fun! (Maybe I’m a bit jealous… I mean, I’d certainly love the chance to get paid to drive around looking down my noses at people and reciting various arcane bits of trivia. Hell, I’d do that for free).
Look, I’m not saying Simon isn’t smart. He is. He certainly, most definitely, is intelligent. I know, because he told me. He also has a strong background in geology, so he can articulately expound about all the complex business going on beneath our feet. He goes on and on with erudition and awe about the collisions of tectonic plates and magma and the supercontinent of Pangaea (which will be the foundation for the failed Fox drama I am currently scripting), all of which is illustrated with maps and drawings and a picture of the general store in Meers, Oklahoma, because it’s just so quaint and rustic to his classically trained mind. This is all well and good, except that geology is boring except for the earthquakes so get to the damn earthquake already!
Simon gets to the earthquake, rest assured. It just takes 234 pages of meanders, digressions, and entirely useless footnotes about topics completely unrelated to anything remotely touched-upon in this book.
The ceaseless introduction of know-it-all non sequiturs might not have been so annoying in a book of more elegance. And to be charitable, there are some nice sequences, including Simon’s description of a night solo-camping on Mount Diablo. The problem, though, is that these detours are interspersed with a lot of seismological jargon that requires slow, careful reading to make any sense. The geology lessons, combined with the anecdotal side-streets, combine to slow the story’s pace to that of the continental drift.
This is a short book that feels long, and it feels long for all the wrong reasons. As my frustrations grew, I imagined myself driving a car with Simon Winchester and Jonathan Lipnicki (the little boy from Jerry Maguire) as passengers.
JONATHAN: Did you know that the human head weighs eight pounds?
SIMON: Did you know that Robert Wallace of the U.S. Geological Survey took a violin with him into the field to serenade coyotes?
JONATHAN: Did you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?
SIMON: Did you know that President Warren G. Harding and King Kalakaua of Hawaii both died in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel and that King Kalakaua’s real name was David Laamea Kamanakapuu Mahinulani Naloiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalakaua?
ME: Did you know that I’m driving this car off a cliff right now? Because I am.
The section of the earthquake is necessarily disappointing. It’s not bad; not at all. It just underwhelms. This is due to the book’s structure, which does not allow for any narrative momentum. By the time San Francisco gets shook, we have learned all about the San Andreas Fault, Simon’s time as a grad student in Iceland, and the history of the State of California. What we haven’t received is any reason why we should care about the people of San Francisco, who serve mainly as shadowy witnesses to an event that itself becomes a backdrop to the author’s dog-and-pony show.
Interestingly, the thing you tend to take away from this account of the earthquake – and which is echoed in other sources – is that most of the death and damage came from the resulting fire. This tends to undercut Simon’s compulsive need to talk about and describe seismology. He keeps warning us that a super-earthquake is going to knock California into the sea; yet he never acknowledges that the story he just told is a cautionary tale of building codes and effective fire response. (To be sure, no one ever went broke warning of our impending doom. All Cassandras – like the original Cassandra – will eventually be right; tragedy is always right around the corner).
Despite what I’ve written, I am predisposed to enjoy a book like this. I am fond of the small literary sub-genre of travelogue-histories, in which a writer goes on a personal journey to visit all the artifacts (and the curators watching over them) that combined to make a historical event. Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation, The Wordy Shipmates) is a delightful tour guide, and her books brim with chirpiness and humor. Tony Horowitz (Confederates in the Attic, A Voyage Long and Strange) brings a more sober, journalistic discipline to his work, finding unforgettable modern characters who are almost mystically connected to the past.
Simon Winchester is just as talented as Vowell and Horowitz. But he’s also as likeable as the Harvard-Bar-grad-student in Good Will Hunting who smarmily recites the works of Gordon Wood to embarrass Ben Affleck.
I would love to take a road trip with Sarah Vowell or Tony Horowitz. I tried to take a road trip with Simon Winchester. We heard his voice on the radio and quickly gave up. If he’d actually been with us, sitting in the middle of the backseat, drinking a Slurpee and extemporizing about every historical marker we zipped past, I would have tossed him from the car.
I’m certain that Simon Winchester would survive being thrown from a moving vehicle. He is, after all, the smartest person alive. Also, I’m certain that – even alone on a deserted highway – he would’ve found a curious bunny to lecture.
And that bunny would listen for awhile, hoping that this odd man with the refined accent would get to a point. Finally, the bunny would give up and bound away. And the night would go on, the stars would come out, and Simon Winchester would still be speaking into the void.
March 22, 2017
This is a fascinating but also frustrating book about the devastating San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906.
Simon Winchester has a passion for geology, which makes him a good person to write about this topic. However, his passion is such that he gets carried away on long tangents, and in truth, this book meandered so much that I nearly abandoned it in frustration.
The meandering starts early, with a long prologue about Neil Armstrong and how his trip to the moon affected the way scientists think about the earth. There are also long passages on the history of geology and plate tectonics, along with the author's exploratory trips around the world. There is interesting stuff here, but the information could be have been streamlined.
After several chapters, we finally focus more on the California earthquake of 1906, which was my favorite part of the book. Winchester describes the causes and effects of the quake, which was followed by a devastating fire that lasted several days and destroyed much of San Francisco. There is also a discussion about how a major earthquake is expected along the San Andreas fault sometime before 2032. (This section was truly alarming, as was the chapter talking about other fault lines expecting a major rupture in the coming decades, including the New Madrid fault line in my current state of Missouri, which could be devastating for a large chunk of the Midwest.)
The last section of the book also meanders a bit, with sidenotes about the history of the insurance industry, and how certain businesses tried to downplay the damage of the Frisco earthquake There are interesting details about how the Chinese immigrants were treated both before and after the earthquake, with some city officials trying to drive them out of town. I also appreciated Winchester's description of how San Francisco was viewed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and how the earthquake forever changed the city.
Overall I liked this book, which includes good photographs and maps, but it seemed like Winchester tried to combine two subjects into one: the history of geology, and the 1906 disaster. The text of this runs more than 400 pages, and I liked most of it, but it needed more editing and revision.
Simon Winchester is a prolific author, and I especially enjoyed his earlier work, The Professor and the Madman, which was about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. I would recommend A Crack in the Edge of the World to readers who like works about natural disasters or geology, but be prepared for a lot of roundabout discussion.
Favorite Quotes
"There is a tendency common to most of us to take the more modest of our landscapes for granted. We see a wide and fertile plain, and we drive across it, as fast as its flatness allows, rarely pondering what might have brought it into being. We come across a valley, and, though we might take pleasure in its appearance, we give it all too little thought, other than perhaps to assume there is probably a river somewhere within its folds, And, while we are generally awestruck by the more spectacular mountain ranges, it seems true to say that those hills that are simply hills, or those mountains that are simply mountains, rarely prompt us to ask: Just why are they there? What forces first made them and set them down here, in this particular place?"
"This fragile, enchanting-looking place had also appeared, more than anything else, most terribly and fatally vulnerable.
"Despite the variety and gaiety and hyperbole, San Francisco in 1906 was also in fact a big, dirty, brawling, vulgar, smoggy, sooty, and corrupt town of rather less charm than myth and latter-day boosterism would have us believe."
"Trials of any kind — war, pestilence, natural or human violence, with wholesale death or total physical destruction, or both, being the harshest of all — may slow that growth or cause some other setback; but such things are just setbacks, and before long the original reasons for a city's existence reassert themselves. Life returns, buildings and roads are rebuilt, new monuments spring up or old ones are found and dusted off, and before long the city returns to its old self, ready to see what more fate can hurl at it, to challenge and strengthen and temper its will to survive. It may not always entirely regain its predisaster status — San Francisco had to cede much to Los Angeles, for example, But generally, so far as their respective quiddities are concerned, great cities always recover."
Simon Winchester has a passion for geology, which makes him a good person to write about this topic. However, his passion is such that he gets carried away on long tangents, and in truth, this book meandered so much that I nearly abandoned it in frustration.
The meandering starts early, with a long prologue about Neil Armstrong and how his trip to the moon affected the way scientists think about the earth. There are also long passages on the history of geology and plate tectonics, along with the author's exploratory trips around the world. There is interesting stuff here, but the information could be have been streamlined.
After several chapters, we finally focus more on the California earthquake of 1906, which was my favorite part of the book. Winchester describes the causes and effects of the quake, which was followed by a devastating fire that lasted several days and destroyed much of San Francisco. There is also a discussion about how a major earthquake is expected along the San Andreas fault sometime before 2032. (This section was truly alarming, as was the chapter talking about other fault lines expecting a major rupture in the coming decades, including the New Madrid fault line in my current state of Missouri, which could be devastating for a large chunk of the Midwest.)
The last section of the book also meanders a bit, with sidenotes about the history of the insurance industry, and how certain businesses tried to downplay the damage of the Frisco earthquake There are interesting details about how the Chinese immigrants were treated both before and after the earthquake, with some city officials trying to drive them out of town. I also appreciated Winchester's description of how San Francisco was viewed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and how the earthquake forever changed the city.
Overall I liked this book, which includes good photographs and maps, but it seemed like Winchester tried to combine two subjects into one: the history of geology, and the 1906 disaster. The text of this runs more than 400 pages, and I liked most of it, but it needed more editing and revision.
Simon Winchester is a prolific author, and I especially enjoyed his earlier work, The Professor and the Madman, which was about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. I would recommend A Crack in the Edge of the World to readers who like works about natural disasters or geology, but be prepared for a lot of roundabout discussion.
Favorite Quotes
"There is a tendency common to most of us to take the more modest of our landscapes for granted. We see a wide and fertile plain, and we drive across it, as fast as its flatness allows, rarely pondering what might have brought it into being. We come across a valley, and, though we might take pleasure in its appearance, we give it all too little thought, other than perhaps to assume there is probably a river somewhere within its folds, And, while we are generally awestruck by the more spectacular mountain ranges, it seems true to say that those hills that are simply hills, or those mountains that are simply mountains, rarely prompt us to ask: Just why are they there? What forces first made them and set them down here, in this particular place?"
"This fragile, enchanting-looking place had also appeared, more than anything else, most terribly and fatally vulnerable.
"Despite the variety and gaiety and hyperbole, San Francisco in 1906 was also in fact a big, dirty, brawling, vulgar, smoggy, sooty, and corrupt town of rather less charm than myth and latter-day boosterism would have us believe."
"Trials of any kind — war, pestilence, natural or human violence, with wholesale death or total physical destruction, or both, being the harshest of all — may slow that growth or cause some other setback; but such things are just setbacks, and before long the original reasons for a city's existence reassert themselves. Life returns, buildings and roads are rebuilt, new monuments spring up or old ones are found and dusted off, and before long the city returns to its old self, ready to see what more fate can hurl at it, to challenge and strengthen and temper its will to survive. It may not always entirely regain its predisaster status — San Francisco had to cede much to Los Angeles, for example, But generally, so far as their respective quiddities are concerned, great cities always recover."
April 22, 2025
To start off this book is not really about the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. I mean Winchester gets around it eventually, but first there are many digressions and travels around the United States. Also, there is also a side trip to Iceland. And lots of lots of geology, plate tectonics and science that went over my head.
The reader gets lots about Simon Winchester and not so much about the events of 1906 but that is okay if you enjoy Winchester as I like Winchester. My wife had previously read this book, so I was warned that it takes a while to get to California. Even though I have enjoyed other Winchester books more I still liked this one.
The reader gets lots about Simon Winchester and not so much about the events of 1906 but that is okay if you enjoy Winchester as I like Winchester. My wife had previously read this book, so I was warned that it takes a while to get to California. Even though I have enjoyed other Winchester books more I still liked this one.
April 1, 2009
I have to say that I really do like this man’s books. I think the only reason I would read a book on Krakatoa is because Winchester wrote it. It is also very likely that the only reason I would read a book on an earthquake is because Winchester wrote it.
Let me tell you what there is to love about this book.
Firstly, Winchester starts off by talking about the Gaia Theory – essentially that everything is related to everything else. He does this because talk of earthquakes has only begun to make sense since we learnt of plate tectonics – that the continents float about the world on huge plates and that these rub up against each other and cause volcanos and earthquakes. And one of the most fascinating things about plate tectonics is that this idea has only been around in science since the 1960s. Think about that for a moment – that we have only had any real idea about the how and the way of volcanos and earthquakes for a little over forty years.
Prior to the 1960s we also had a very localised view of how these catastrophic events happened. We really didn’t have any notion that an earthquake in Tokyo might impact on a volcano in Hawaii. We still have only hints about how these two events might be related, but the fact we can even seriously ask the question now ought to send a shiver down your spine. “What a piece of work is Man… in apprehension how like a God…”
Gaia theory holds that the whole of the world is linked up by a series of complex and remarkable interconnections. And just to celebrate, Winchester writes his books in a way that brings to the fore layer after layer of beautifully observed relationships between earthquakes and racism and artists leaving for the hills and architecture and religion.
When people say things like, ‘everything is related to everything else’ I generally feel a little uncomfortable in that ‘let me get out of this conversation as quickly as I can’ kind of way. There is a scene in Douglas Adams’s Dirk Bogart’s Holistic Detective Agency where Dirk is at a complete loss what to do next and so, figuring that everything is connected to everything else, he follows a car at random, which, naturally enough, brings him to where he needs to go. This is fiction after all.
Winchester’s paths are never random. His relationships never fail to delight. His keen eye for both the fascinating and the absurd never fail him. I really am very fond of his books and this one is no exception.
There is a part of this book where he is describing the horrific fire that started as the earthquake ended. This was a city ready to burn, and the quake bursting both gas pipes and water pipes beneath the city did much to strike that particular match. There is a photo in this book taken from the top of a hill. In the distance you can see the smoke billowing and being blown into the background of the picture. How Winchester explains what you are looking at and what is about to happen in the world of this photograph is one of those moments in a book that is a pure joy. He starts off by stating what we all think – that fires move in the direction that the winds blow them. Clearly, in this photograph, the wind is blowing towards the back, so that will be the direction the fire will go. He then points out that what is in the distance behind the scene in the photograph is water and already burnt buildings. It is then that he says that city fires not only make their own winds, but that they move in the direction of the fuel that is available – not always in the direction of the wind.
One of the more fascinating connections with this earthquake was the start of the Pentecostal movement. The pastor who started the Pentecostal movement said, a mere three days before the quake and fire, that God was preparing a sign – and when God prepares signs, he provides the entire Burma Shave experience. The most Godless city in the United States virtually wiped off the map in one go. God does seem to have learnt his lesson though, as this time there are no wives being turned into pillars of salt and the only good man in the town didn’t end up getting drunk and doing a Fritzl with his two daughters. At least, at the time it seemed they only spoke in tongues – I’ve no idea when Pentecostals started getting down and dirty, but I assume it was a long time prior to when the Swaggarts and Bakers did their stuff.
I liked this one very much, but then, I’ve enjoyed every one of his books so far.
Let me tell you what there is to love about this book.
Firstly, Winchester starts off by talking about the Gaia Theory – essentially that everything is related to everything else. He does this because talk of earthquakes has only begun to make sense since we learnt of plate tectonics – that the continents float about the world on huge plates and that these rub up against each other and cause volcanos and earthquakes. And one of the most fascinating things about plate tectonics is that this idea has only been around in science since the 1960s. Think about that for a moment – that we have only had any real idea about the how and the way of volcanos and earthquakes for a little over forty years.
Prior to the 1960s we also had a very localised view of how these catastrophic events happened. We really didn’t have any notion that an earthquake in Tokyo might impact on a volcano in Hawaii. We still have only hints about how these two events might be related, but the fact we can even seriously ask the question now ought to send a shiver down your spine. “What a piece of work is Man… in apprehension how like a God…”
Gaia theory holds that the whole of the world is linked up by a series of complex and remarkable interconnections. And just to celebrate, Winchester writes his books in a way that brings to the fore layer after layer of beautifully observed relationships between earthquakes and racism and artists leaving for the hills and architecture and religion.
When people say things like, ‘everything is related to everything else’ I generally feel a little uncomfortable in that ‘let me get out of this conversation as quickly as I can’ kind of way. There is a scene in Douglas Adams’s Dirk Bogart’s Holistic Detective Agency where Dirk is at a complete loss what to do next and so, figuring that everything is connected to everything else, he follows a car at random, which, naturally enough, brings him to where he needs to go. This is fiction after all.
Winchester’s paths are never random. His relationships never fail to delight. His keen eye for both the fascinating and the absurd never fail him. I really am very fond of his books and this one is no exception.
There is a part of this book where he is describing the horrific fire that started as the earthquake ended. This was a city ready to burn, and the quake bursting both gas pipes and water pipes beneath the city did much to strike that particular match. There is a photo in this book taken from the top of a hill. In the distance you can see the smoke billowing and being blown into the background of the picture. How Winchester explains what you are looking at and what is about to happen in the world of this photograph is one of those moments in a book that is a pure joy. He starts off by stating what we all think – that fires move in the direction that the winds blow them. Clearly, in this photograph, the wind is blowing towards the back, so that will be the direction the fire will go. He then points out that what is in the distance behind the scene in the photograph is water and already burnt buildings. It is then that he says that city fires not only make their own winds, but that they move in the direction of the fuel that is available – not always in the direction of the wind.
One of the more fascinating connections with this earthquake was the start of the Pentecostal movement. The pastor who started the Pentecostal movement said, a mere three days before the quake and fire, that God was preparing a sign – and when God prepares signs, he provides the entire Burma Shave experience. The most Godless city in the United States virtually wiped off the map in one go. God does seem to have learnt his lesson though, as this time there are no wives being turned into pillars of salt and the only good man in the town didn’t end up getting drunk and doing a Fritzl with his two daughters. At least, at the time it seemed they only spoke in tongues – I’ve no idea when Pentecostals started getting down and dirty, but I assume it was a long time prior to when the Swaggarts and Bakers did their stuff.
I liked this one very much, but then, I’ve enjoyed every one of his books so far.
August 1, 2023
Interesting and informative but not compelling!
In a fashion similar to his thematic approach in KRAKATOA, Simon Winchester has chosen a specific natural disaster - the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake - as the centerpiece for a multi-course banquet entitled A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. But, like the ill-advised chef who has tried to put too much into a single meal, Winchester has made a few culinary mistakes as well - some dishes are overcooked; others with great promise are left underdone; some courses are served in a strange order while others are split into multiple portions and served up in small doses throughout the course of the meal; some tantalizing confections are sampled but the diner is left unsatisfied and sadly wishing for more. As one reviewer very cleverly observed, there is the germ of a great popular science and history book buried in A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, but it seriously wants editing and greater organization to clarify Winchester's chosen sub-themes.
Make no mistake though (to stretch the culinary metaphor to its breaking point), Winchester certainly provides lots of meat for his readers to chew on - the current state of seismology and plate tectonics; the history of both sciences; the natural history of the San Andreas and related faults; tsunamis and volcanoes; the shameful treatment of the Chinese in California through the early years of the twentieth century; the surprising relationship between the earthquake and the explosive growth of the Pentecostals in the USA; and the history of California and San Francisco, most notably, how their genesis has been so clearly affected by the 1906 earthquake specifically and the overwhelming probability of a recurrence of a major seismological event in the near geological future.
Certainly a fine book and anyone who enjoys science, history, or the history of science will be pleased to have read it. But, here's the rub ... KRAKATOA was compelling and mesmerizing whereas A CRACK ... was merely interesting and informative.
Paul Weiss
In a fashion similar to his thematic approach in KRAKATOA, Simon Winchester has chosen a specific natural disaster - the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake - as the centerpiece for a multi-course banquet entitled A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. But, like the ill-advised chef who has tried to put too much into a single meal, Winchester has made a few culinary mistakes as well - some dishes are overcooked; others with great promise are left underdone; some courses are served in a strange order while others are split into multiple portions and served up in small doses throughout the course of the meal; some tantalizing confections are sampled but the diner is left unsatisfied and sadly wishing for more. As one reviewer very cleverly observed, there is the germ of a great popular science and history book buried in A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, but it seriously wants editing and greater organization to clarify Winchester's chosen sub-themes.
Make no mistake though (to stretch the culinary metaphor to its breaking point), Winchester certainly provides lots of meat for his readers to chew on - the current state of seismology and plate tectonics; the history of both sciences; the natural history of the San Andreas and related faults; tsunamis and volcanoes; the shameful treatment of the Chinese in California through the early years of the twentieth century; the surprising relationship between the earthquake and the explosive growth of the Pentecostals in the USA; and the history of California and San Francisco, most notably, how their genesis has been so clearly affected by the 1906 earthquake specifically and the overwhelming probability of a recurrence of a major seismological event in the near geological future.
Certainly a fine book and anyone who enjoys science, history, or the history of science will be pleased to have read it. But, here's the rub ... KRAKATOA was compelling and mesmerizing whereas A CRACK ... was merely interesting and informative.
Paul Weiss
August 26, 2007
This one was tough to rate. I loved Simon Winchester’s books Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.) and The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (P.S.) for their story-telling style. This one however, is written in a very scientific manner. Indeed, according to Amazon’s text stats, this book was written at 15.2 grade level as measured by Flesh-Kincaid readability—for comparison, Amazon indicates that only 9% of the books are at a higher level. Further, at an average of 30.7 words per sentence, the average sentence in this book has more words than 97% of Amazon’s books. Yeah, yeah, I'm a numbers geek.
While I enjoy learning new words and usually have a dictionary nearby as I read, this book slowed me down with the number of times I had to stop and look up words. Here are a few examples from page 117 of the hardcover edition: gasconading lickspittles, gimcrack houses, panjandrum, and Spanish-speaking hobbledehoys.
If you’re looking for a scientific explanation about the history of plate tectonics from when the first landmasses broke the surface of the water to the present day, this book is for you. The story of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake just gets lost in the scientific jargon.
While I enjoy learning new words and usually have a dictionary nearby as I read, this book slowed me down with the number of times I had to stop and look up words. Here are a few examples from page 117 of the hardcover edition: gasconading lickspittles, gimcrack houses, panjandrum, and Spanish-speaking hobbledehoys.
If you’re looking for a scientific explanation about the history of plate tectonics from when the first landmasses broke the surface of the water to the present day, this book is for you. The story of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake just gets lost in the scientific jargon.
March 19, 2016
I am 150 pages from the end of this tome, and you know what? I am going to DNF hard. I just dont care about it anymore. I really tried, I really did, but Winchester hasnt even started talking about THE ACTUAL EARTHQUAKE YET. I just have too many other books to read before I due to continue on with this self-absorbed shit.
This was my last attempt with Winchester. He simply isn't an engaging author. I find him pompous and his books horribly bloated and lacking in any energy, connection, or emotion. I've read state budgets that were more interesting.
This was my last attempt with Winchester. He simply isn't an engaging author. I find him pompous and his books horribly bloated and lacking in any energy, connection, or emotion. I've read state budgets that were more interesting.
January 24, 2008
Like a train wreck, I can't look away.
The 1906 earthquake that most notably affected San Francisco is a fascinating topic, and I like books with a bit of Science in them, but oh my god! could this author be any more of a pain in the ass? I just have to prove it with a couple of examples, but truly sir: Mr. Winchester, I implore you, where are your trustworthy editors? Nowhere, mon frere. Example One in my hypothetical thesis entitled "why Simon Winchester is a pain in the ass": in one paragraph (pgs. 91 and 92, oh, it's a long-ass paragraph) Mr. Winchester makes use of the following words: panjandrum, lickspittle, gimcrack, gasconading. Now, I believe I have already more than proven my thesis, but two further examples for the sake of thoroughness: 2. in a book about the San Francisco quake, the quake happens in real time in the narrative on page 205; before that is background discussion of plate tectonics and other gimcrack subjects. Finally, example three has to be seen to be believed. I think I'll just put a sample paragraph here that shows the tedious, longggggg-winded, pretentious writing style (and mind you, the author seems like a good dude and all, no offense intended, he just needs a competent editor). The following paragraph, I'd hone down to five or six words if I were editing: "I went to New Madrid, Missouri." He uses 175 words:
"To begin to answer that—and geologists have been grappling for years with the vexing problem of those earthquakes that occur where they ought not to—I first had to drive some 600 miles west, to the site of one of the most remarkable earthquakes that America has ever known—by some accounts the biggest ever experienced in the Lower Forty-Eight states. I then had to travel another 400 miles westward, to a village set deep in the Midwestern plains, where a seismograph is mounted inside the general store. My second destination was a somewhat obscure and all but forgotten place, though one of some importance in explaining why America suffers earthquakes so far from the edges of the plate on which it stands. My first intended stop, however, was at a town that suffered an event that took place over a series of weeks during the winter between 1811 and 1812—a hitherto unremarkable Mississippi riverside town that has since entered the lore and the lexicon of seismologists around the world: New Madrid, Missouri." The End
The 1906 earthquake that most notably affected San Francisco is a fascinating topic, and I like books with a bit of Science in them, but oh my god! could this author be any more of a pain in the ass? I just have to prove it with a couple of examples, but truly sir: Mr. Winchester, I implore you, where are your trustworthy editors? Nowhere, mon frere. Example One in my hypothetical thesis entitled "why Simon Winchester is a pain in the ass": in one paragraph (pgs. 91 and 92, oh, it's a long-ass paragraph) Mr. Winchester makes use of the following words: panjandrum, lickspittle, gimcrack, gasconading. Now, I believe I have already more than proven my thesis, but two further examples for the sake of thoroughness: 2. in a book about the San Francisco quake, the quake happens in real time in the narrative on page 205; before that is background discussion of plate tectonics and other gimcrack subjects. Finally, example three has to be seen to be believed. I think I'll just put a sample paragraph here that shows the tedious, longggggg-winded, pretentious writing style (and mind you, the author seems like a good dude and all, no offense intended, he just needs a competent editor). The following paragraph, I'd hone down to five or six words if I were editing: "I went to New Madrid, Missouri." He uses 175 words:
"To begin to answer that—and geologists have been grappling for years with the vexing problem of those earthquakes that occur where they ought not to—I first had to drive some 600 miles west, to the site of one of the most remarkable earthquakes that America has ever known—by some accounts the biggest ever experienced in the Lower Forty-Eight states. I then had to travel another 400 miles westward, to a village set deep in the Midwestern plains, where a seismograph is mounted inside the general store. My second destination was a somewhat obscure and all but forgotten place, though one of some importance in explaining why America suffers earthquakes so far from the edges of the plate on which it stands. My first intended stop, however, was at a town that suffered an event that took place over a series of weeks during the winter between 1811 and 1812—a hitherto unremarkable Mississippi riverside town that has since entered the lore and the lexicon of seismologists around the world: New Madrid, Missouri." The End
November 22, 2010
Boy howdy, Simon Winchester sure knows his geology! And while he’s telling you about it, he’ll also throw in a long tangent about camping on Mount Diablo. And then he’ll tell you about the Gaia theory. And then he might get distracted by a story from his college days. And then he FINALLY arrives – 205 pages into this book – at the Great San Francisco Earthquake, the theme of this book. But then – and I want to strangle him for this - he’ll forsake all the human lives of the city and their stories for a lengthy explanation on how the broken gas pipes caused a massive fire.
I am reminded of a joke about either Tolstoy or Michener – or both – that they take four chapters to tell us about how the earth formed. Winchester takes the whole book. The earthquake happened in a city…a city populated with people…yes, I get that there were buildings and gas pipes and other stuff there that got shook around in physically and scientifically fascinating ways, but all that stuff Winchester concentrates on was all put there by the humans that the author almost completely ignores.
The person that Simon Winchester seems most interested in telling us about is Simon Winchester. He likes big words. He went to Oxford. He knows geology. He goes camping.
I now know a lot more about geology. I should’ve read the flap more carefully, because I wasn’t looking for a self-possessed windbag’s explanation on plate tectonics. I was looking for the human heart of the disaster, like what Eric Larson did with the Galveston hurricane in Isaac’s Storm. I didn’t get that…
I am reminded of a joke about either Tolstoy or Michener – or both – that they take four chapters to tell us about how the earth formed. Winchester takes the whole book. The earthquake happened in a city…a city populated with people…yes, I get that there were buildings and gas pipes and other stuff there that got shook around in physically and scientifically fascinating ways, but all that stuff Winchester concentrates on was all put there by the humans that the author almost completely ignores.
The person that Simon Winchester seems most interested in telling us about is Simon Winchester. He likes big words. He went to Oxford. He knows geology. He goes camping.
I now know a lot more about geology. I should’ve read the flap more carefully, because I wasn’t looking for a self-possessed windbag’s explanation on plate tectonics. I was looking for the human heart of the disaster, like what Eric Larson did with the Galveston hurricane in Isaac’s Storm. I didn’t get that…
April 15, 2015
I hate these science books by Winchester, he wreaks havoc on my Book Challenge because I cannot zip through it. I have to slow down and really enjoy it. Yeah, giving A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 5 Stars for making plate tectonics interesting. Seriously. You don’t get to the San Francisco part of the story until page 230. The SF story is more interesting for the attempt by politicians and others to remake the 1906 event into a slight tremor that caused a big fire—didn’t want to make SF a dangerous place to invest and live. Fire can be prevented—earthquakes can’t. The 1906 earthquake released about 21 feet of movement along the San Andreas fault. According to Winchester in 2005, there was 17 feet of fault slippage stored up as of 2005. Scary sh*t, it only a matter of time until the next big one.
What I find so interesting about the “new” geology, i.e., plate tectonics, is that it has been developed in my lifetime, essentially since 1970. An old science, completely remade in a generation. This may seem a little weird but when I read this passage, I had some dramatic music playing in my head, something like Holst’s The Planets…here is Winchester’s description of the very, very early life of our planet:
The book carries on in similar fashion through the various discoveries on our energetic little ball of earth. Winchester takes a circuitous route to 1906 San Fran but I just loved the journey. Not for everyone but worked for me. Good account of the earthquake and the aftermath. Oh, and he leaves us with a warning about the super-volcanic hot spot beneath Yellowstone, actually the cycle for this one to blow is due anytime. Winchester also casually points out that the earth’s faults are connected and often one earthquake sets off others all around the world.
Just great fun reading!
What I find so interesting about the “new” geology, i.e., plate tectonics, is that it has been developed in my lifetime, essentially since 1970. An old science, completely remade in a generation. This may seem a little weird but when I read this passage, I had some dramatic music playing in my head, something like Holst’s The Planets…here is Winchester’s description of the very, very early life of our planet:
The book carries on in similar fashion through the various discoveries on our energetic little ball of earth. Winchester takes a circuitous route to 1906 San Fran but I just loved the journey. Not for everyone but worked for me. Good account of the earthquake and the aftermath. Oh, and he leaves us with a warning about the super-volcanic hot spot beneath Yellowstone, actually the cycle for this one to blow is due anytime. Winchester also casually points out that the earth’s faults are connected and often one earthquake sets off others all around the world.
Just great fun reading!
August 8, 2024
This is my second or third read, but I'm a fiend for disasters. . .and am a California girl, lived in the area - spent lots of family time on Mt. Diablo, so this had my full attention, even as a repeat reader.
Simon Winchester is a great writer, and superb storyteller - he's serious, but pithy, and has quotables that keep one thinking and nodding in accord.
Simon Winchester is a great writer, and superb storyteller - he's serious, but pithy, and has quotables that keep one thinking and nodding in accord.
July 8, 2024
This book is a combination of travelogue, history, science, and memoir. In Winchester’s usual sweeping style, he covers a broad range of subject matter to provide the full context of the historical, cultural, and geological conditions surrounding the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Winchester starts at the eastern edge of the North American Plate, in Iceland, and journeys to the western edge in California. Along the way, he covers plate tectonics, other significant North American earthquakes, and specifics about the San Andreas and other faults. After relating the sequence of events that occurred in San Francisco in 1906, he continues his travelogue on to Alaska, recounting anecdotes and information about other major earthquakes that took place in the region. Winchester engages in interesting digressions, such as the 1849 California Gold Rush, the Chinese Exclusion Act, the screening of Chinese immigrants at Angel Island, the development of insurance agencies, the roots of Pentecostalism, and much more. It is obvious that the author has done extensive research, and he excels at creating an engaging narrative around topics that could otherwise seem rather dry. I always enjoy Simon Winchester’s writing and this book is right up there with his other excellent works. It is both educational and entertaining.
April 7, 2018
This is a mostly delightful tour of geology, earthquakes and plate tectonics, with an emphasis on California's infamous San Andreas Fault and the 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco. I can highly recommend it.
Much to the delight of info gluttons, Winchester as always ranges widely from the nominal focus of the book. Any reader looking for an in-depth history of the whys and wherefores of the earthquake and fire will be more than satisfied, as well anyone wondering about the broader surrounding topics.
Of course, if you want your author to go straight to the heart of the matter, this isn't your book and, furthermore, you really should forego any of Winchester's books.
By the way, this book was more personal to me than to most of you out there: I've lived in San Francisco for almost my entire adult life, and I'm a third-generation Californian (and almost a third-generation San Franciscan). I've backpacked for many years in the Sierras, thrown up millions of years ago by the mechanisms he describes in the book, and I felt connected to every scene he describes in the city.
Still, my reaction to this book isn't unalloyed praise. I think there were several false notes. The more obvious one was the connection to Pentecostalism. I agree it was an important phenomena of the time — actually, I wouldn't be here if my mother's parents hadn't found each other while attending a Pentecostal church during the depression. But the movement almost certainly would have taken off with or without San Francisco's earthquake; that kind of exuberant religiosity seems to be a fundamental part of U.S. culture. Despite the specific anecdotes that tie the two stories together, I felt it was really a post hoc, ergo propter hoc kind of connection, and detrimental to the book's focus.
The other significant annoyance was that several times the author referred to San Francisco and other places in close proximity to the fault as "very dangerous". Now, maybe when the Big One hits I'll change my tune, but substantially fewer than 1000 Californians have died in earthquakes in the past century. As I'm writing this at the end of April 2013, and the New York Times just reminded me that three years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (which killed 63 in the region), Los Angeles lived through the Rodney King riots, which killed 54. And, of course, at least 15 (and possibly many more) have just died in the explosion of a fertilizer company in Texas. Frankly, life is dangerous; everyone dies in the end.
Living in an earthquake zone does slightly raise the likelihood of dying prematurely (or being seriously injured), but there are many, many other factors that affect mortality rates even more. Coastal California — right along the San Andeas Fault — has a famously benign climate, for example. I suspect the overall health of the locals is higher because of it, and probably lengthens their life expectancy more than the earthquake risk shortens it. Winchester even makes fun of the residents of Portola Valley, a town that lies directly upon the fault line — amused at how they argue endlessly about whether and where to move this building or that, only to go back to sipping their sauvignon blanc. He agrees that their "way of life [is] quite unrivaled in its quality anywhere in the world", yet still thinks that there can be "no greater monument to hubris" that the choose to live there.
I suppose he really thinks they'd be better off somewhere else, but I think there's a lot of hubris in his assertion that he is right and several million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area are being irrational. Perhaps he should have asked the scientists at the Menlo Park's USGS — the same folks he thanks for helping in his studies. After all, their office is on alluvial soil about eight miles from Portola Valley, and they undoubtedly live in the area. It apparently did not occur to Winchester to ask them what they feel about that risk.
I'll take the certitude of a quake and its consequent increase in my mortality over living elsewhere, thank you.
Addendum: Stephen Colbert's bit on the earthquake is amusing: The San Francisco Earthquake: Was It Really That Bad?.
Much to the delight of info gluttons, Winchester as always ranges widely from the nominal focus of the book. Any reader looking for an in-depth history of the whys and wherefores of the earthquake and fire will be more than satisfied, as well anyone wondering about the broader surrounding topics.
Of course, if you want your author to go straight to the heart of the matter, this isn't your book and, furthermore, you really should forego any of Winchester's books.
By the way, this book was more personal to me than to most of you out there: I've lived in San Francisco for almost my entire adult life, and I'm a third-generation Californian (and almost a third-generation San Franciscan). I've backpacked for many years in the Sierras, thrown up millions of years ago by the mechanisms he describes in the book, and I felt connected to every scene he describes in the city.
Still, my reaction to this book isn't unalloyed praise. I think there were several false notes. The more obvious one was the connection to Pentecostalism. I agree it was an important phenomena of the time — actually, I wouldn't be here if my mother's parents hadn't found each other while attending a Pentecostal church during the depression. But the movement almost certainly would have taken off with or without San Francisco's earthquake; that kind of exuberant religiosity seems to be a fundamental part of U.S. culture. Despite the specific anecdotes that tie the two stories together, I felt it was really a post hoc, ergo propter hoc kind of connection, and detrimental to the book's focus.
The other significant annoyance was that several times the author referred to San Francisco and other places in close proximity to the fault as "very dangerous". Now, maybe when the Big One hits I'll change my tune, but substantially fewer than 1000 Californians have died in earthquakes in the past century. As I'm writing this at the end of April 2013, and the New York Times just reminded me that three years after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (which killed 63 in the region), Los Angeles lived through the Rodney King riots, which killed 54. And, of course, at least 15 (and possibly many more) have just died in the explosion of a fertilizer company in Texas. Frankly, life is dangerous; everyone dies in the end.
Living in an earthquake zone does slightly raise the likelihood of dying prematurely (or being seriously injured), but there are many, many other factors that affect mortality rates even more. Coastal California — right along the San Andeas Fault — has a famously benign climate, for example. I suspect the overall health of the locals is higher because of it, and probably lengthens their life expectancy more than the earthquake risk shortens it. Winchester even makes fun of the residents of Portola Valley, a town that lies directly upon the fault line — amused at how they argue endlessly about whether and where to move this building or that, only to go back to sipping their sauvignon blanc. He agrees that their "way of life [is] quite unrivaled in its quality anywhere in the world", yet still thinks that there can be "no greater monument to hubris" that the choose to live there.
I suppose he really thinks they'd be better off somewhere else, but I think there's a lot of hubris in his assertion that he is right and several million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area are being irrational. Perhaps he should have asked the scientists at the Menlo Park's USGS — the same folks he thanks for helping in his studies. After all, their office is on alluvial soil about eight miles from Portola Valley, and they undoubtedly live in the area. It apparently did not occur to Winchester to ask them what they feel about that risk.
I'll take the certitude of a quake and its consequent increase in my mortality over living elsewhere, thank you.
Addendum: Stephen Colbert's bit on the earthquake is amusing: The San Francisco Earthquake: Was It Really That Bad?.
February 6, 2017
Great book!
I bought it for my 9th grader to read as part of her homeschooling program, but I read it before her. At first I thought I would never get through it. His writing is stilted and boring at the beginning, even as he describes the miracles of our astounding planet. And because I am not a student of geology, I was falling asleep over the technical talk.
Soon he picks up speed and his language starts to flow, I start using my dictionary to gain an understanding of his geology terms, and we reach a meeting of the minds. I understand what he is saying and he is enjoying what he is teaching.
I grew up in Southern California and went through the San Fernando earthquake in 1971, and the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Now I live in Seattle and was here for the Nisqually earthquake in 2001. it amazes me to think that my youngest kiddo, at 15, has never been in an earthquake! She was born later in 2001 than the Nisqually earthquake. I keep thinking we must be in for another pretty soon. That is a little frightening!
So I make it through tectonic plate history, placement and movement of; and the early history of quakes along the San Andreas and related faults in Northern California. Good, good. Now onto the history of San Francisco, which I found fascinating, and then the quake itself and the aftermath. Wow! Mind-boggling! I loved this section, it was so very, very interesting.
After this, he brings us into the present with a road trip that even includes a trip to Alaska to see the trans-Alaska oil pipeline which crosses the Denali Fault!! The pipeline is very cleverly constructed with expansion curves and sliders and has so far survived an earth movement of eighteen feet to the right without a drop of oil spilled. Well hey for human ingenuity in this case.
Recommended read!
I bought it for my 9th grader to read as part of her homeschooling program, but I read it before her. At first I thought I would never get through it. His writing is stilted and boring at the beginning, even as he describes the miracles of our astounding planet. And because I am not a student of geology, I was falling asleep over the technical talk.
Soon he picks up speed and his language starts to flow, I start using my dictionary to gain an understanding of his geology terms, and we reach a meeting of the minds. I understand what he is saying and he is enjoying what he is teaching.
I grew up in Southern California and went through the San Fernando earthquake in 1971, and the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Now I live in Seattle and was here for the Nisqually earthquake in 2001. it amazes me to think that my youngest kiddo, at 15, has never been in an earthquake! She was born later in 2001 than the Nisqually earthquake. I keep thinking we must be in for another pretty soon. That is a little frightening!
So I make it through tectonic plate history, placement and movement of; and the early history of quakes along the San Andreas and related faults in Northern California. Good, good. Now onto the history of San Francisco, which I found fascinating, and then the quake itself and the aftermath. Wow! Mind-boggling! I loved this section, it was so very, very interesting.
After this, he brings us into the present with a road trip that even includes a trip to Alaska to see the trans-Alaska oil pipeline which crosses the Denali Fault!! The pipeline is very cleverly constructed with expansion curves and sliders and has so far survived an earth movement of eighteen feet to the right without a drop of oil spilled. Well hey for human ingenuity in this case.
Recommended read!
June 13, 2012
This book only gets a three from me because I felt it was falsely advertised. As a Bay Area native, earthquakes have always held a strong fascination for me. I experienced a fairly large one in 1989, and my memories are still as strong today as they were then. So when I pick up a book that gives me an impression that its about the year 1906, and the seismic activity that occurred all around the world that year, ending with the ultimate seismic event near the shores of San Francisco, it was disconcerting to read about the geologic history of the earth.
As fascinating as that was, when over half the book is about the formation of the earth and the world as we now know it, and the Great Earthquake of 1906 seems to be almost an afterthought for the final 100 or so pages . . . well, needless to say, I was a bit disappointed. It's a time in California history that I find enthralling, and was nestled in my bed ready to read about how the ground rolled and the buildings fell and fires consumed, yet I had to dredge through why Iceland is where it is and why dirt in Japan is related to dirt in Africa. Believe me, it was interesting, but when you pick up a book expecting one thing and read another, it's a disappointing experience. By the time I actually reached the earthquake in San Francisco, I could have cared less at that point. I just wanted to be done with the book.
As fascinating as that was, when over half the book is about the formation of the earth and the world as we now know it, and the Great Earthquake of 1906 seems to be almost an afterthought for the final 100 or so pages . . . well, needless to say, I was a bit disappointed. It's a time in California history that I find enthralling, and was nestled in my bed ready to read about how the ground rolled and the buildings fell and fires consumed, yet I had to dredge through why Iceland is where it is and why dirt in Japan is related to dirt in Africa. Believe me, it was interesting, but when you pick up a book expecting one thing and read another, it's a disappointing experience. By the time I actually reached the earthquake in San Francisco, I could have cared less at that point. I just wanted to be done with the book.
August 28, 2007
Now I'm surprised to see so many people who didn't like this book, but I'm guessing it's more a matter of style. Winchester certainly does take his time getting to the San Francisco part of this book but it is "America and the Great California Earthquake...", and like his previous book on Krakatoa he does like taking the discussion far afield. However, it's the kind of book I like, much more about "why" and "how" rather than "who" and "when". I would recommend it, especially if you liked "Krakatoa".
March 8, 2008
The dustjacket is the best part.
January 2, 2013
Let us suppose that you are to take a flight from New York to California. You book the flight, make time to head out to the West Coast, and make your way to JFK. Only when you arrive, you find that your flight had been cancelled. The only flight available is out of Newark Airport, and it routes through some airline hub out in the middle of the country – Houston or Dallas or Chicago or Cincinnati, take your pick.
So you get on a shuttle bus and head for Newark, and board your new flight, and settle in for a long siege. You’ve seen the in-flight movie. You’ve finished your novel well before you reach your intermediate destination. And then there’s a long layover, and you get back on another plane, with the same in-flight magazine and discarded USA TODAY sections and nothing else to read. And somewhere, over Kansas, you speculate that you are still a long, long way from San Francisco.
Readers of A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, can relate, and more than you know. Author Simon Winchester is (metaphorically speaking) headed for San Francisco, but it takes a damnably long time to get there, and there are more detours along that route than even the most unfortunate airline reader will ever encounter, much less countenance.
To give you an idea – just an idea – of where A Crack in the Edge of the World is going, the book starts in Wapakoneta. Ohio, known primarily as the home of Neil Armstrong, who has nothing to do at all with the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that anyone, even the multitalented Winchester, can reveal. This is in the prologue, which introduces the Gaia Hypothesis and the New Geology and the rest of the science stuff. After that, Winchester gets near San Francisco – interjecting himself into the narrative by means of a story about his a camping trip to a nearby mountain – but it doesn’t take him long to get back to plate tectonics all over again.
About every other chapter in Winchester’s book is noted as a “Chronicle”, and these chapters hew to what a reasonable expectation of what a primarily historical book about the San Francisco earthquake would be about. These are the short chapters. The long chapters are long indeed. One of them, “From Plate to Shining Plate”, is a first-person disquisition of a lengthy, and largely pointless, tour of the North American Plate. Highlights of this include a trip to Iceland (where the North American Plate begins), New Madrid, Missouri (where a devastating earthquake took place in 1811), and the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma (where another fault is to be found). None of this, except by comparison, has anything to do with San Francisco, or 1906, or anything much of anything else.
And the travelogues (there’s another one in the vicinity of the San Andreas Fault, and yet another up to Alaska at the book’s close) are at least marginally interesting. The scientific disquisition of the geology that underlines San Francisco is explained with a degree of depth that is only surpassed by its complete lack of clarity. (Anyone who has read, and enjoyed, John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World will recognize the shortcomings in Winchester’s book.) Winchester covers ophiolites, and strike-slip faulting, and epicenters, all before telling us anything in-depth about San Francisco and 1906 and the human scope of the disaster.
Eventually, Winchester does get his reader to San Francisco. The earthquake, when it happens – that’s on page 243 of my version – is arresting, and powerful, and has a human impact. Winchester introduces us to the famous figures in San Francisco – Enrico Caruso, and Jack London, and the young Ansel Adams – and the ordinary people displaced by the tragedy. He focuses, admirably, on the fate of San Francisco’s Chinatown, and the fight made by nativist Californians to relocate its residents elsewhere. Winchester handles the historical sections with a grace and aplomb that’s totally missing from the first half of the narrative – in part by the simple action of taking himself out of the story, but mostly to his skill as a storyteller.
A Crack in the Edge of the World is a perfectly reasonable choice for any seasoned airline traveler to bring along – not least because the reader has the power to skip over the more impenetrable sections. Unfortunately, there’s still no easy and simple way to skip over long layovers at O’Hare.
So you get on a shuttle bus and head for Newark, and board your new flight, and settle in for a long siege. You’ve seen the in-flight movie. You’ve finished your novel well before you reach your intermediate destination. And then there’s a long layover, and you get back on another plane, with the same in-flight magazine and discarded USA TODAY sections and nothing else to read. And somewhere, over Kansas, you speculate that you are still a long, long way from San Francisco.
Readers of A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, can relate, and more than you know. Author Simon Winchester is (metaphorically speaking) headed for San Francisco, but it takes a damnably long time to get there, and there are more detours along that route than even the most unfortunate airline reader will ever encounter, much less countenance.
To give you an idea – just an idea – of where A Crack in the Edge of the World is going, the book starts in Wapakoneta. Ohio, known primarily as the home of Neil Armstrong, who has nothing to do at all with the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that anyone, even the multitalented Winchester, can reveal. This is in the prologue, which introduces the Gaia Hypothesis and the New Geology and the rest of the science stuff. After that, Winchester gets near San Francisco – interjecting himself into the narrative by means of a story about his a camping trip to a nearby mountain – but it doesn’t take him long to get back to plate tectonics all over again.
About every other chapter in Winchester’s book is noted as a “Chronicle”, and these chapters hew to what a reasonable expectation of what a primarily historical book about the San Francisco earthquake would be about. These are the short chapters. The long chapters are long indeed. One of them, “From Plate to Shining Plate”, is a first-person disquisition of a lengthy, and largely pointless, tour of the North American Plate. Highlights of this include a trip to Iceland (where the North American Plate begins), New Madrid, Missouri (where a devastating earthquake took place in 1811), and the Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma (where another fault is to be found). None of this, except by comparison, has anything to do with San Francisco, or 1906, or anything much of anything else.
And the travelogues (there’s another one in the vicinity of the San Andreas Fault, and yet another up to Alaska at the book’s close) are at least marginally interesting. The scientific disquisition of the geology that underlines San Francisco is explained with a degree of depth that is only surpassed by its complete lack of clarity. (Anyone who has read, and enjoyed, John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World will recognize the shortcomings in Winchester’s book.) Winchester covers ophiolites, and strike-slip faulting, and epicenters, all before telling us anything in-depth about San Francisco and 1906 and the human scope of the disaster.
Eventually, Winchester does get his reader to San Francisco. The earthquake, when it happens – that’s on page 243 of my version – is arresting, and powerful, and has a human impact. Winchester introduces us to the famous figures in San Francisco – Enrico Caruso, and Jack London, and the young Ansel Adams – and the ordinary people displaced by the tragedy. He focuses, admirably, on the fate of San Francisco’s Chinatown, and the fight made by nativist Californians to relocate its residents elsewhere. Winchester handles the historical sections with a grace and aplomb that’s totally missing from the first half of the narrative – in part by the simple action of taking himself out of the story, but mostly to his skill as a storyteller.
A Crack in the Edge of the World is a perfectly reasonable choice for any seasoned airline traveler to bring along – not least because the reader has the power to skip over the more impenetrable sections. Unfortunately, there’s still no easy and simple way to skip over long layovers at O’Hare.
February 1, 2016
Okay. Read the blurb for this book and tell me--what do you think this book is about? The 1906 earthquake maybe?
Well, we'll see. Let's check out the first sentence:
He goes on to paint the town as a quaint, worried old man or woman taking pride in their mechanical work and sucking their teeth with worry over "such newfangled developments as" outsourcing to Mexico and Asia. The town is just an old fuddy-duddy though. It has a cool side too. Once upon a time, Neil Armstrong lived there. Cue: Oooh, Aaah.
Do you see any hint of an earthquake yet? Or even of just San Francisco or 1906? No? Well, here is the connection:
Wapakoneta ---> Neil Armstrong ---> Space ---> Being able to see Earth ("And it was a view that in time compelled humankind to take stock.") ---> navel-gazing ---> geology? ("A Born-Again Science" Seriously).
Now, to be fair, this is only the prologue. The actual book must be more focused and better-written, yes?
Heh.
Chapter one (after 22 full pages of prologue) does indeed begin well. It starts off with a little known fact as icebreaker ("...1906 was a year of the Fire Horse...") and then starts the subject matter, much, to be honest, like any high school paper-- broadly. You know the sort-- the paper that begins talking about the importance of Shakespeare's works, rather than simply getting down to business and writing the requested analysis of the word "fear" as used in Midsummer's Night Dream? In this case, Winchester talks about earthquakes in 1906 in general. Now, this is interesting information. It is a fine way to start the book.
The chapter goes from page 23 to page 28. Five whole pages.
Here is the beginning of chapter two: "I first saw San Francisco in the early seventies, at the end of a long westward drive that had taken me clear across the North American continent."
From page 29 to page 32 is all about him seeing SF. Then we get the history of the mountain he camped upon when he saw SF. This is followed by a brief introduction to plate tectonics (again) and then the narrative returns to him.
He then walks us back to his campsite, down to his car, and lets us know that San Francisco is one of the most temporary cities ever built.
We are now 48 pages in and still no sign of the earthquake. (Well, that is a lie, there were a couple pages in the prologue concerning the timing of the quake.)
The next chapter is relevant again. Context history. Like the last relevant chapter, however, it is very short. 8 pages (front and back).
Chapter four starts our plate tectonics lesson. This doesn't bother me. The fact that several pages of that chapter are spent on the author recounting the ever thrilling tale of his youth when he once stood on two plates at the same time does.
(Back in 2009; I am no longer reading this book) I am currently mid-chapter four and am trying to decide whether or not I honestly want to finish this book. The author's writing style and tone are driving me mad. He does little things, like anthropomorphize the Earth or attempt to create false anxiety with 'cliffhangers' (Oh no! He has a word stuck in his head that alters his perception of SF forever! Whatever could it be and why won't he tell us? etc.), that I cannot stand.
Also, this book is reading more like what I'd imagine Gilderoy Lockheart would create on the subject, than what I'd hoped for: an interesting account of the earthquake. I am learning about Winchester's youth and the tangents he finds interesting, but not so much about subject in the title and mentioned on the back cover. Every time I start to get interested in what is happening, he ruins it all by pulling the camera focus back to him.
I don't mind the tangents and such so much. I like context information. I just don't care about Mr. Winchester. Not even a little bit and the more he tells me about himself, the less interested I am.
I honestly cannot remember if I ever bothered to finish the book.
Well, we'll see. Let's check out the first sentence:
Some while ago, when I was half-idly browsing my way around the Internet, I stumbled across the home page of an obscure small town in western Ohio with the arresting name of Wapakoneta.
He goes on to paint the town as a quaint, worried old man or woman taking pride in their mechanical work and sucking their teeth with worry over "such newfangled developments as" outsourcing to Mexico and Asia. The town is just an old fuddy-duddy though. It has a cool side too. Once upon a time, Neil Armstrong lived there. Cue: Oooh, Aaah.
Do you see any hint of an earthquake yet? Or even of just San Francisco or 1906? No? Well, here is the connection:
Wapakoneta ---> Neil Armstrong ---> Space ---> Being able to see Earth ("And it was a view that in time compelled humankind to take stock.") ---> navel-gazing ---> geology? ("A Born-Again Science" Seriously).
Now, to be fair, this is only the prologue. The actual book must be more focused and better-written, yes?
Heh.
Chapter one (after 22 full pages of prologue) does indeed begin well. It starts off with a little known fact as icebreaker ("...1906 was a year of the Fire Horse...") and then starts the subject matter, much, to be honest, like any high school paper-- broadly. You know the sort-- the paper that begins talking about the importance of Shakespeare's works, rather than simply getting down to business and writing the requested analysis of the word "fear" as used in Midsummer's Night Dream? In this case, Winchester talks about earthquakes in 1906 in general. Now, this is interesting information. It is a fine way to start the book.
The chapter goes from page 23 to page 28. Five whole pages.
Here is the beginning of chapter two: "I first saw San Francisco in the early seventies, at the end of a long westward drive that had taken me clear across the North American continent."
From page 29 to page 32 is all about him seeing SF. Then we get the history of the mountain he camped upon when he saw SF. This is followed by a brief introduction to plate tectonics (again) and then the narrative returns to him.
What I remember most about the city, which was spread out beyond the low hills and clustered like a jewel box of gleaming spires and glittering windows on its tiny thumbnail peninsula, was just how astonishingly delicate it all looked. [...] I squinted through a big brass telescope that been obligingly placed upon the parapet. My feeling was that this was a confection of untoward and only half-urban-looking delicacy was confirmed by the magnifying lenses. How tightly San Francisco appeared to cling on to its hillsides: One could imagine knuckles whitened, sinews straining, teeth gritted.
He then walks us back to his campsite, down to his car, and lets us know that San Francisco is one of the most temporary cities ever built.
We are now 48 pages in and still no sign of the earthquake. (Well, that is a lie, there were a couple pages in the prologue concerning the timing of the quake.)
The next chapter is relevant again. Context history. Like the last relevant chapter, however, it is very short. 8 pages (front and back).
Chapter four starts our plate tectonics lesson. This doesn't bother me. The fact that several pages of that chapter are spent on the author recounting the ever thrilling tale of his youth when he once stood on two plates at the same time does.
(Back in 2009; I am no longer reading this book) I am currently mid-chapter four and am trying to decide whether or not I honestly want to finish this book. The author's writing style and tone are driving me mad. He does little things, like anthropomorphize the Earth or attempt to create false anxiety with 'cliffhangers' (Oh no! He has a word stuck in his head that alters his perception of SF forever! Whatever could it be and why won't he tell us? etc.), that I cannot stand.
Also, this book is reading more like what I'd imagine Gilderoy Lockheart would create on the subject, than what I'd hoped for: an interesting account of the earthquake. I am learning about Winchester's youth and the tangents he finds interesting, but not so much about subject in the title and mentioned on the back cover. Every time I start to get interested in what is happening, he ruins it all by pulling the camera focus back to him.
I don't mind the tangents and such so much. I like context information. I just don't care about Mr. Winchester. Not even a little bit and the more he tells me about himself, the less interested I am.
I honestly cannot remember if I ever bothered to finish the book.
August 19, 2022
To those familiar with Winchester's way of writing - which is well researched and flows very easily - this is another example of the teaser, followed by background information before getting to the proverbial 'meat' of the tale about mid-way through the book. Winchester actually uses this book to relay a travelogue-type adventure as he leaves the East Coast and travels across the country to San Francisco - visiting Charleston, South Carolina and New Madrid, Missouri along the way - before spending some time in San Francisco itself.
But on to the book and his tale - first, the teaser being a view of those early-risers making their way to or from work even as tragedy looms over them. But before we get to the actual incident, there is the background information - plate tectonics, the formation of the crustal/ocean plates and ancient continents that collided and broke apart. The exploration and opening of the West and California. The settlement of California by the Spanish/Mexicans and the eventual flood of settlers longing to make their fortune in the gold fields. The field of seismology and the different parts of the San Andreas fault where the two large plates are moving at different rates and different directions. Scientific research into the fault itself and how various areas - like Parkland - is extensively covered with seismographs and other measuring equipment, hoping to record the next quake (which averages around 100 a day, most being so 'minor' that only sensitive equipment even knows they have occurred). The history of Sand Francisco itself as well as the immigration of Chinese and the bias that placed them just slightly above the discrimination against blacks. A few notable quake like Tejon Pass in January 1857 and then to 1906 San Francisco.
The destruction of San Francisco from the ground movement put on display to the world the cheap and haphazard construction of many buildings but it was the numerous fires started by fallen electric wires sparking in pools of oil and kerosene as well on the dry wooden structures that practically wiped a section of the city clear. Assistance from around the country poured in and this was an opportunity to rebuild their city in a more organized matter - they actually had a preliminary plan delivered the day before - but business leaders were more concerned with getting their people back to work, profits flowing in and encourage institutions and individuals that the city was a safe financial investment.
As the writer finishes his personal time in the city by the Bay, he travels north to the near-end of the fault into Alaska - and some interesting stops along the way - and back to the United States and a visit at Yellowstone and the magma chamber below that fills and fades, the ground under the lake rising and falling as if the earth is practically breathing. Even as the last eruption there was hundreds of thousands of years ago, the clock is ticking for the next one just as there are numerous faults and geological hotspots that are building stress and will "soon" release it. But in turn, no one has been able to devise a reliable prediction procedure for the next quake to strike.
As usual, Winchester drops bits of humor while providing his own inimitable storytelling ability with massive amounts of knowledge and background information. Informative, occasionally amusing and overall an absorbing saga.
2022-182
But on to the book and his tale - first, the teaser being a view of those early-risers making their way to or from work even as tragedy looms over them. But before we get to the actual incident, there is the background information - plate tectonics, the formation of the crustal/ocean plates and ancient continents that collided and broke apart. The exploration and opening of the West and California. The settlement of California by the Spanish/Mexicans and the eventual flood of settlers longing to make their fortune in the gold fields. The field of seismology and the different parts of the San Andreas fault where the two large plates are moving at different rates and different directions. Scientific research into the fault itself and how various areas - like Parkland - is extensively covered with seismographs and other measuring equipment, hoping to record the next quake (which averages around 100 a day, most being so 'minor' that only sensitive equipment even knows they have occurred). The history of Sand Francisco itself as well as the immigration of Chinese and the bias that placed them just slightly above the discrimination against blacks. A few notable quake like Tejon Pass in January 1857 and then to 1906 San Francisco.
The destruction of San Francisco from the ground movement put on display to the world the cheap and haphazard construction of many buildings but it was the numerous fires started by fallen electric wires sparking in pools of oil and kerosene as well on the dry wooden structures that practically wiped a section of the city clear. Assistance from around the country poured in and this was an opportunity to rebuild their city in a more organized matter - they actually had a preliminary plan delivered the day before - but business leaders were more concerned with getting their people back to work, profits flowing in and encourage institutions and individuals that the city was a safe financial investment.
As the writer finishes his personal time in the city by the Bay, he travels north to the near-end of the fault into Alaska - and some interesting stops along the way - and back to the United States and a visit at Yellowstone and the magma chamber below that fills and fades, the ground under the lake rising and falling as if the earth is practically breathing. Even as the last eruption there was hundreds of thousands of years ago, the clock is ticking for the next one just as there are numerous faults and geological hotspots that are building stress and will "soon" release it. But in turn, no one has been able to devise a reliable prediction procedure for the next quake to strike.
As usual, Winchester drops bits of humor while providing his own inimitable storytelling ability with massive amounts of knowledge and background information. Informative, occasionally amusing and overall an absorbing saga.
2022-182
November 11, 2015
Ok.... this book is NOT about the San Francisco earthquake. Well... at least the first half isn't. That's as far as I made it. I put this book down 4 times to read others, so I gave it a go. The first half of this book is plate tectonics lesson along with a journal of the authors travels to plate tectonics related areas in western North America. NOT about the earthquake! This man is obviously very intelligent and should be a science professor if he isn't already. I bought this book to learn about the San Francisco earthquake.. i read 250 (of the 500 pages) and didn't learn a single thing about the quake. I had enough. It's a drawn out science lesson that I would imagine eventually discusses the event in the title. I was thoroughly disappointed and plan to try another book on the subject... that actually talks about THE EARTHQUAKE!
March 27, 2017
Calling it quits. As an audio book, this was too rambling and wandering to keep track of. Winchester flits from topic to topic and most of it is not about the earthquake.
February 11, 2017
This book is a bit slow and meandering, with more geological factoids than I needed to know, but still I enjoyed it.
I lived in sparkling San Francisco for a summer, on beautiful Beach Street, which took a hit during the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. But that recent quake was nothing compared to the 1906 disaster Winchester portrays here. He bases his account on first-hand journal entries, letters, diaries, newspaper articles by James Hopper, and the bleak photographs that made Genthe famous.
Winchester portrays the quake from a worldwide Pangea perspective, comparing fault lines and famous quakes, including Yellowstone National Park. He also portrays the after effects, including 26 aftershocks, water pipes bursting, cattle stampeding, and fire swallowing city blocks whole, while the mayor scrambled for water in a city surrounded by sea.
I also recommend the docudrama movie THE GREAT SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE, directed and written by Philip Smith. Unlike Winchester, Smith portrayed Mayor Eugene Schmitz as a villain. We see him as an avaricious, corrupt politician — and a fool who refused to allocate resources to prevent fire, ignoring his fire chief's warnings, despite the fact that the city had burned six times since the 1849 Gold Rush. Smith condemns the mayor for handing the city over to martial law, allowing soldiers to execute about 500 citizens, including some who were innocent of wrongdoing. Others saw Schmitz as a strong leader taking drastic measures when needed.
I also enjoyed Simon Winchester's book depicting one insane soul who helped compile quotations for THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY: THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN.
I lived in sparkling San Francisco for a summer, on beautiful Beach Street, which took a hit during the Loma Prieta quake of 1989. But that recent quake was nothing compared to the 1906 disaster Winchester portrays here. He bases his account on first-hand journal entries, letters, diaries, newspaper articles by James Hopper, and the bleak photographs that made Genthe famous.
Winchester portrays the quake from a worldwide Pangea perspective, comparing fault lines and famous quakes, including Yellowstone National Park. He also portrays the after effects, including 26 aftershocks, water pipes bursting, cattle stampeding, and fire swallowing city blocks whole, while the mayor scrambled for water in a city surrounded by sea.
I also recommend the docudrama movie THE GREAT SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE, directed and written by Philip Smith. Unlike Winchester, Smith portrayed Mayor Eugene Schmitz as a villain. We see him as an avaricious, corrupt politician — and a fool who refused to allocate resources to prevent fire, ignoring his fire chief's warnings, despite the fact that the city had burned six times since the 1849 Gold Rush. Smith condemns the mayor for handing the city over to martial law, allowing soldiers to execute about 500 citizens, including some who were innocent of wrongdoing. Others saw Schmitz as a strong leader taking drastic measures when needed.
I also enjoyed Simon Winchester's book depicting one insane soul who helped compile quotations for THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY: THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN.
May 15, 2025
I have an enormous well spring of tolerance for Simon Winchester ever since reading his truly remarkable 'The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words' which is one of my favorite odd and hard to classify books. That affection was confirmed by his fascinating account of the explosion at Krakatoa (having seen the absurdly risible al inaccurately named film 'Krakatoa East of Java' as a child the name of the volcano was irreversibly engraved on my memory but I remember the film because I fell in love with Sal Mineo in his last film role). Having 'done' one 'historic' natural disaster with great success I suppose it was inevitable he would turn to another unfortunately with less success.
The problem is that the San Francisco earthquake was not what caused the real death and destruction, it was the fire that followed and the at times poor post earthquake management of San Franciscos corrupt political establishment. This renders all the very detailed, and for me, dull seismological details not simply boring, but superfluous, though they may appeal to all those who like to fantasise about the coming Goterdetmurung by earthquake in SF or LA. Personally I think Winchester should have stuck to Volcanoes and wrote about Mount Pelee in 1902 in Martinique when the town St. Pierre was completely eliminated with 29,000 died.
This was a boring read for long stretches and the actual coverage of what happened in SF treated rather cursorily.
The problem is that the San Francisco earthquake was not what caused the real death and destruction, it was the fire that followed and the at times poor post earthquake management of San Franciscos corrupt political establishment. This renders all the very detailed, and for me, dull seismological details not simply boring, but superfluous, though they may appeal to all those who like to fantasise about the coming Goterdetmurung by earthquake in SF or LA. Personally I think Winchester should have stuck to Volcanoes and wrote about Mount Pelee in 1902 in Martinique when the town St. Pierre was completely eliminated with 29,000 died.
This was a boring read for long stretches and the actual coverage of what happened in SF treated rather cursorily.
July 1, 2020
Simon Winchester can be a bit too much sometimes. This was my second attempt to read this book, the first one bogging down in so much detail and personal travelogue and not really reaching the actual earthquake until 200 pages in (aside from a teaser at the beginning, of course). Nevertheless, this time I persevered and am glad that I did.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was devastating to the city. Not only did the shaking (7.9 or 8.3 depending on the estimates) of the earth destroy many poorly built buildings, but the fires that followed burned many more in a largely wooden city. But this is much more than just the event here. Winchester loves geology and dives in deep here, starting with a tour of the entire North American tectonic plate - which of course actually starts in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. So we get a tour of Iceland, and some history on large earthquakes that have occurred in the Eastern US. The San Andreas Fault gets a lot of attention as well as how we measure quakes. And of course there's abundant history on San Francisco. And if you don't mind a somewhat meandering and wide-ranging history full of science and travel, it's actually a rather entertaining book.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake was devastating to the city. Not only did the shaking (7.9 or 8.3 depending on the estimates) of the earth destroy many poorly built buildings, but the fires that followed burned many more in a largely wooden city. But this is much more than just the event here. Winchester loves geology and dives in deep here, starting with a tour of the entire North American tectonic plate - which of course actually starts in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. So we get a tour of Iceland, and some history on large earthquakes that have occurred in the Eastern US. The San Andreas Fault gets a lot of attention as well as how we measure quakes. And of course there's abundant history on San Francisco. And if you don't mind a somewhat meandering and wide-ranging history full of science and travel, it's actually a rather entertaining book.
January 20, 2025
Another great book by Simon Winchester. I actually liked the way this was put together to not focus exclusively on the 1906 earthquake itself, but rather geography, geology, plate tectonics and other historical data about other earthquakes instead.
Lots of maps and photos to illustrate. I’ve been to San Francisco, and it is indeed a pretty city, but I did not know that after the quake, they had the opportunity to have Daniel Burnham help design their shattered city but said, ‘nah, we’re good.’ A lot of wasted opportunity there.
Finally, I was really happy to see some discussion regarding the insurance situation after the quake & fire. Especially given the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, it is a great reminder how California sits on some dangerous tectonic real estate. 5 stars
Lots of maps and photos to illustrate. I’ve been to San Francisco, and it is indeed a pretty city, but I did not know that after the quake, they had the opportunity to have Daniel Burnham help design their shattered city but said, ‘nah, we’re good.’ A lot of wasted opportunity there.
Finally, I was really happy to see some discussion regarding the insurance situation after the quake & fire. Especially given the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, it is a great reminder how California sits on some dangerous tectonic real estate. 5 stars
March 3, 2022
This is a really complicated one to review, because here more than ever the star rating reflects my personal view. I know that all star ratings do, but generally for me there's no real difference between the content and my opinion of it -- if the content is good, the book is good; if the content is bad, the book is bad. Simple, right? Well, in this book the content is good. It's very good. It just wasn't quite what I was hoping for.
I can't reasonably rate this book any lower despite the fact I'm a little frustrated and disappointed. The research that has gone into this book is impeccable, and the way the book deals with complex and vast histories is impressive. The book is never dry or dull, and it's well-organised and easy to follow. It covers a variety of related topics, admittedly some more fascinating than others, but it always does so in a thorough and engaging way -- impressive, when you consider that a lot of the topics would be regarded as rather dull by most. If I had known what I was getting into, I would have likely enjoyed this book a lot more. However, I vastly underestimated how much this book would skate around the earthquake itself.
Don't get me wrong -- this is definitely a book about the earthquake. But it's more a book about the before and after of the earthquake, rather than the earthquake itself. I went into this hoping for more of a narrative non-fiction vibe, when in reality it's straightforward non-fiction. There's really not a lot about the earthquake as it was witnessed, and there's no cohesive narrative to help illustrate the impact of the event itself on the people who lived it. It's very much a history of the Earth, and then a history of the San Andreas fault, and then a history of the American West, and then a history of San Francisco, and then, 215 pages into the 350 page book, we get to the earthquake. We get a few chapter sections about the earthquake and the fire, with a scattering if eyewitness accounts, and then we're on to the aftermath, and the history of the insurance companies involved, and a brief section on how the city rebuilt, and that's it.
There are mentions of other earthquakes, and many sections or chapters end with a dramatic mention of the coming disaster, but the longer the book goes on (again, it's over 200 pages before we get to the earthquake itself) the more this felt like having a carrot dangled in front of me. I hoped that the earthquake would be examined with the same amount of detail, and that it would be a blow by blow account of the day and the immediately following time -- had this been the case, the book would have felt a lot more balanced, and I would have felt like I had got what I came for. I don't mind reading in detail about related topics; in fact it's why I love the disaster non-fiction genre so much. I pick up so much knowledge and trivia, and placed within the context of a disaster, it's easy to follow and remember. But I do like to get a good focus on the disaster, as well. Instead, a very small section of this book was about the quake itself, and while the whole book can be said to be about it, it wasn't quite the focus I was looking for. Perhaps the author would have done better to write a more expansive book on the history of the San Andreas fault itself, using San Francisco as a major case study -- as it feels like what this book is anyway.
Overall, meticulously researched and very impressive; from a technical standpoint the only thing I can criticise is the semi-frequent chunks of travel writing at the beginning and in the epilogue, as the author describes his road trip around the States following all these important fault-related destinations, which to be honest I wasn't remotely interested in. Aside from that, though, my major issue is that this just wasn't what I was looking for, but it doesn't change the fact that what's there is well done, and for people looking for or expecting a broader history of the San Andreas fault and a lengthy history of geology, this would be a brilliant read.
I can't reasonably rate this book any lower despite the fact I'm a little frustrated and disappointed. The research that has gone into this book is impeccable, and the way the book deals with complex and vast histories is impressive. The book is never dry or dull, and it's well-organised and easy to follow. It covers a variety of related topics, admittedly some more fascinating than others, but it always does so in a thorough and engaging way -- impressive, when you consider that a lot of the topics would be regarded as rather dull by most. If I had known what I was getting into, I would have likely enjoyed this book a lot more. However, I vastly underestimated how much this book would skate around the earthquake itself.
Don't get me wrong -- this is definitely a book about the earthquake. But it's more a book about the before and after of the earthquake, rather than the earthquake itself. I went into this hoping for more of a narrative non-fiction vibe, when in reality it's straightforward non-fiction. There's really not a lot about the earthquake as it was witnessed, and there's no cohesive narrative to help illustrate the impact of the event itself on the people who lived it. It's very much a history of the Earth, and then a history of the San Andreas fault, and then a history of the American West, and then a history of San Francisco, and then, 215 pages into the 350 page book, we get to the earthquake. We get a few chapter sections about the earthquake and the fire, with a scattering if eyewitness accounts, and then we're on to the aftermath, and the history of the insurance companies involved, and a brief section on how the city rebuilt, and that's it.
There are mentions of other earthquakes, and many sections or chapters end with a dramatic mention of the coming disaster, but the longer the book goes on (again, it's over 200 pages before we get to the earthquake itself) the more this felt like having a carrot dangled in front of me. I hoped that the earthquake would be examined with the same amount of detail, and that it would be a blow by blow account of the day and the immediately following time -- had this been the case, the book would have felt a lot more balanced, and I would have felt like I had got what I came for. I don't mind reading in detail about related topics; in fact it's why I love the disaster non-fiction genre so much. I pick up so much knowledge and trivia, and placed within the context of a disaster, it's easy to follow and remember. But I do like to get a good focus on the disaster, as well. Instead, a very small section of this book was about the quake itself, and while the whole book can be said to be about it, it wasn't quite the focus I was looking for. Perhaps the author would have done better to write a more expansive book on the history of the San Andreas fault itself, using San Francisco as a major case study -- as it feels like what this book is anyway.
Overall, meticulously researched and very impressive; from a technical standpoint the only thing I can criticise is the semi-frequent chunks of travel writing at the beginning and in the epilogue, as the author describes his road trip around the States following all these important fault-related destinations, which to be honest I wasn't remotely interested in. Aside from that, though, my major issue is that this just wasn't what I was looking for, but it doesn't change the fact that what's there is well done, and for people looking for or expecting a broader history of the San Andreas fault and a lengthy history of geology, this would be a brilliant read.
November 1, 2016
This book made me unexpectedly angry. For starters, the cover is a fucking lie--as is the flyleaf--all 6 paragraphs about the SF Earthquake with but one clue I see now for what was in store for me: "But Winchester's achievement is even greater: he positions the quake's significance along the earth's geological timeline and shows the effect it had on the rest of twentieth-century California and American history."--because yeah, he sure as hell tries to do that. For starters this book is NOT about the SF Earthquake, and if you pick it up thinking you are going to read a history delving into that day and the repercussions etc., you will be disappointed. If you wanted to read the pretentious musings of a self-indulgent Brit as he compulsively visits everything remotely connected to earthquakes in the Western hemisphere starting back to when the earth was just a little baby ball of molten lava, then you are in for a treat.
You know, I've read a lot of non-fiction history books where the author plays a main role--everything by Sarah Vowell, and Betty Furness's Mabel is one of my all-time favorite books--and perhaps those two ladies had better editors or friends to tell them "NO! YOU'VE EXPOUNDED ON PANGAEA LONG ENOUGH" -- so it's not like I hate those kinds of books and have tons on my shelves, but dear god I hated this one. I wanted the author to fall into some crevice a 100 pages in. He never even gets to the topic of SF earthquake until like 250 pages in a 385 page book. I don't feel like I left this book knowing anything more really than when I started--other than the exact second it occurred, because there are multiple chapters about that, and just a few paragraphs it seems spared for the death count, which just seems to be "dunno, no way to tell, 300 - 3,000."
If he wanted to write a book about tectonic plates and geology, he should write a book on that. But after hearing so much self-praise and hints to his delightful life of adventure and knowledge, it's also coupled with him conducting his "research" right after 9/11. I say research because it seems like it's mostly snotty observations on the towns he visits in the US--Americans are generally fat, slothish, freedom fry eating head-in-sand morons. Pithy passages like: "There is worse, however: Someone suggested taking the road farther north still to Dawson City and being initiated into a drinking club that has its signature libation a whiskey in which is marinated some unfortunate frostbitten toe. It seemed almost a repellant an attraction as Wal-Mart."
I'm as rabid as a liberal as you can find, and I wanted to give him the finger after a few chapters of smirking. Tennessee described as "tedious" and "too wide"? And I didn't bother to go through and mark previous passages to compare, but it seems like his descriptions of SF varied widely. Is it a beautiful city after all, unlike any other, or sorta ruined with meh houses with no plan and is only beautiful because a luck of nature? It seems he espouses to both views. Though...I do take it back, I did like finding out that the namesake of the Douglas fir, David Douglas, tripped and fell into a hole that had an angry bull (who had also previously fallen in hole) at the bottom, who gored him to death, but it wasn't worth reading all those pages to learn that fun fact.
You know, I've read a lot of non-fiction history books where the author plays a main role--everything by Sarah Vowell, and Betty Furness's Mabel is one of my all-time favorite books--and perhaps those two ladies had better editors or friends to tell them "NO! YOU'VE EXPOUNDED ON PANGAEA LONG ENOUGH" -- so it's not like I hate those kinds of books and have tons on my shelves, but dear god I hated this one. I wanted the author to fall into some crevice a 100 pages in. He never even gets to the topic of SF earthquake until like 250 pages in a 385 page book. I don't feel like I left this book knowing anything more really than when I started--other than the exact second it occurred, because there are multiple chapters about that, and just a few paragraphs it seems spared for the death count, which just seems to be "dunno, no way to tell, 300 - 3,000."
If he wanted to write a book about tectonic plates and geology, he should write a book on that. But after hearing so much self-praise and hints to his delightful life of adventure and knowledge, it's also coupled with him conducting his "research" right after 9/11. I say research because it seems like it's mostly snotty observations on the towns he visits in the US--Americans are generally fat, slothish, freedom fry eating head-in-sand morons. Pithy passages like: "There is worse, however: Someone suggested taking the road farther north still to Dawson City and being initiated into a drinking club that has its signature libation a whiskey in which is marinated some unfortunate frostbitten toe. It seemed almost a repellant an attraction as Wal-Mart."
I'm as rabid as a liberal as you can find, and I wanted to give him the finger after a few chapters of smirking. Tennessee described as "tedious" and "too wide"? And I didn't bother to go through and mark previous passages to compare, but it seems like his descriptions of SF varied widely. Is it a beautiful city after all, unlike any other, or sorta ruined with meh houses with no plan and is only beautiful because a luck of nature? It seems he espouses to both views. Though...I do take it back, I did like finding out that the namesake of the Douglas fir, David Douglas, tripped and fell into a hole that had an angry bull (who had also previously fallen in hole) at the bottom, who gored him to death, but it wasn't worth reading all those pages to learn that fun fact.
May 5, 2022
Meh.
Some of what I hated about this book wasn't its fault, but combined together, they were the perfect storm of Meh.
1. I listened to this book right on the heels of listening to two of Bill Bryson's books. Bill Bryson is a MUCH better storyteller. It's not that this book wasn't interesting, because some of it was, but it just wasn't told in an interesting way.
2. Simon Winchester's voice is nearly identical to my husband's voice when he's imitating his brother David (rest in peace) and the rest of David's Oxford pipe-smoking, elbow-patch-wearing, men's-club-only-going, snooty friends. My husband's imitations are caricatures, but it's like Simon Winchester was channeling them perfectly. I could barely take him seriously, especially every time he said the year. If I had to hear him say 2004 as two-double-oh-four ONE MORE TIME, I think I would have lost my freaking mind.
3. This book became white noise for me on many occasions. I was listening, but I'd find myself tuning out all the time.
4. It felt judgmental. Maybe it's because he is British, and he's writing about U.S. Culture, but it felt judge-y. And icky. And pedantic. And condescending.
My husband has listened to several of Simon Winchester's books and found them very interesting. I'll call it at one and leave his books for a more highbrow audience. They're definitely not for me.
To find SOMETHING positive, I loved the part about the San Francisco Post Office and how they didn't lose a single piece of mail during the earthquake. They ignored the military orders to evacuate and plugged up the windows of their building with water-soaked mail sacks to keep out the raging fires. Their dedication was awesome.
Some of what I hated about this book wasn't its fault, but combined together, they were the perfect storm of Meh.
1. I listened to this book right on the heels of listening to two of Bill Bryson's books. Bill Bryson is a MUCH better storyteller. It's not that this book wasn't interesting, because some of it was, but it just wasn't told in an interesting way.
2. Simon Winchester's voice is nearly identical to my husband's voice when he's imitating his brother David (rest in peace) and the rest of David's Oxford pipe-smoking, elbow-patch-wearing, men's-club-only-going, snooty friends. My husband's imitations are caricatures, but it's like Simon Winchester was channeling them perfectly. I could barely take him seriously, especially every time he said the year. If I had to hear him say 2004 as two-double-oh-four ONE MORE TIME, I think I would have lost my freaking mind.
3. This book became white noise for me on many occasions. I was listening, but I'd find myself tuning out all the time.
4. It felt judgmental. Maybe it's because he is British, and he's writing about U.S. Culture, but it felt judge-y. And icky. And pedantic. And condescending.
My husband has listened to several of Simon Winchester's books and found them very interesting. I'll call it at one and leave his books for a more highbrow audience. They're definitely not for me.
To find SOMETHING positive, I loved the part about the San Francisco Post Office and how they didn't lose a single piece of mail during the earthquake. They ignored the military orders to evacuate and plugged up the windows of their building with water-soaked mail sacks to keep out the raging fires. Their dedication was awesome.
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