Earthquakes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Seismic Disruptions

by Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, Donald Theodore Sanders

On November 1, 1755--All Saints' Day--a massive earthquake struck Europe's Iberian Peninsula and destroyed the city of Lisbon. Churches collapsed upon thousands of worshippers celebrating the holy day. Earthquakes in Human History tells the story of that calamity and other epic earthquakes. The authors, Jelle Zeilinga de Boer and Donald Theodore Sanders, recapture the power of their previous book, Volcanoes in Human History . They vividly explain the geological processes responsible for earthquakes, and they describe how these events have had long-lasting aftereffects on human societies and cultures. Their accounts are enlivened with quotations from contemporary literature and from later reports.


In the chaos following the Lisbon quake, government and church leaders vied for control. The Marquês de Pombal rose to power and became a virtual dictator. As a result, the Roman Catholic Jesuit Order lost much of its influence in Portugal. Voltaire wrote his satirical work Candide to refute the philosophy of "optimism," the belief that God had created a perfect world. And the 1755 earthquake sparked the search for a scientific understanding of natural disasters.


Ranging from an examination of temblors mentioned in the Bible, to a richly detailed account of the 1906 catastrophe in San Francisco, to Japan's Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, to the Peruvian earthquake in 1970 (the Western Hemisphere's greatest natural disaster), this book is an unequaled testament to a natural phenomenon that can be not only terrifying but also threatening to humankind's fragile existence, always at risk because of destructive powers beyond our control.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Geology

304 pages, Paperback

First published December 6, 2004

Reviews

[Marcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"But instead of immediately launching a program of reconstruction in the valley, the government looked upon the disaster as an opportunity for speeding the process of social reform. ...even while the wretched survivors lived in misery." pg 209

"The revolution, the officials said, would not permit a return to the "old reality". pg 212

"The survivors were angry at the way the bureaucracy controlled their lives and frustrated their efforts to rebuild their world." pg 212

Hmmm. This sounds familiar.

[Nefertari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely intersection of science and history, and how a climactic event in geology can spur so many changes in the human race that resides on the crust.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earthquakes in Human History attempts to be a cross-disciplinary book, combining scientific descriptions of various famous earthquakes with discussion of their social and political aftereffects. The overall effect is a bit disjointed, since the hard-science passages - very clearly and professionally written, with a generous sprinkling of diagrams showing exactly how each quake came about - are interspersed with sociopolitical writing that takes a tone more reminiscent of a middle-school history textbook.

The contrast isn't jarringly inappropriate; the book is quite readable, with many interesting anecdotes and sidebars helping to tell the story of each quake's immediate effect on those who experienced it. Casual readers, or readers approaching the subject with little prior knowledge, will probably find it fascinating. However, as a reader familiar with academic papers in geology, I was disappointed to find that the social aftereffects of the earthquakes discussed were treated in a rather cursory way compared to the in-depth, scholarly analyses of the quakes' physical mechanisms.

I would be extremely interested to read a book that studied the sociopolitical aftereffects of geological happenings in depth, especially if it also included the sorts of details and anecdotes which Sanders and deBoer use well to create atmosphere. Sadly, this is not quite that book.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

de Boer and Sanders' "Earthquakes" is exactly what it says on the tin: a quick survey of how earthquakes have affected human history. An initial section explains the basic causes of earthquakes, and subsequent chapters reflect on activity in the middle east, England, Greece, Japan, South America, the American midwest, and the Pacific Coast. The authors lead with a retelling of the quakes' immediate effects, like the days of fire consuming San Francisco in 1906; this is followed by material on how seismic activity has shaped the local geology, and finally thoughts on the long-reaching effects. The long-reaching effects are the weakest point of the book, with the authors giving credits to earthquakes for everything from the collapse of states like Sparta and Portugal, to the rise of the scientific revolution. That last is overdoing it, methinks. Take it as a narrative account of some of the Earth's deadliest earthquakes, strengthened by explanations of how quakes occur where they do, and it succeeds.

[Julien Rapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always been fascinated by history. And by science. I have a degree in history and spent several years living in California. This was a great book piquing all these interests. It is well written and covers how earthquakes have affected people and cultures around the world and across time.