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A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 | 
| Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  90 reviews
Sales Rank: 31993
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.461051
ASIN: B000PD3MH0
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
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Amazon.com
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 85 more reviews...
 Arrogant, Pompous and Snobbish July 7, 2008
One has to wonder whether Simon Winchester fancies himself a Charles Dickens. It was not Winchester's style that causes me to ponder such a comparison, but that Dickens was paid by the word for the many books he wrote. While the book purports to be about the San Francisco Earthquake, it isn't until more than halfway through the book that the earthquake begins. The first half of the book is about Winchester's meanderings across the North American plate, from Iceland, through Greenland, New Madrid, until finally reaching San Francisco. He continues on to Alaska in the almost completely irrelevant epilogue. There is a long digression about Mt. Diablo which doesn't seem to be connected to the rest of the book.
Unlike Dickens, Winchester will not be remembered for his fine literature, but for his arrogance, pomposity, and lack of erudition. Winchester's poor scholarship and bias is so blatantly obvious that it caused several substantial guffaws at various points in the book. The Lisbon earthquake and tsunami of 1755 is offered up by Winchester as an example of how poor, unsophisticated religious people lack the intellectual capacity to understand the earthquake, saying only that "God caused it." Winchester fails to mention that the science of seismology was born with the Lisbon quake when the Marquis de Pombal, then the prime minister of Portugal, made a first attempt at a scientific understanding of the earthquake by sending out questionnaires to all in the surrounding countryside to assess what happened. He also fails to mention the enormous impact of the Lisbon earthquake on the development of theodicy - that branch of philosophy/theology which is concerned with the problem of evil.
Winchester's treatment of religion is consistently illiterate and superficial. All religions are lumped together as if they are the same. Religion is dismissed without comprehension or understanding, while at the same time scientists are lionized as the new "priests." The Jesuits do get an honorable mention for their development of the science of seismology. In fact, the Jesuit contribution to seismology was enormous.
Perhaps the biggest guffaw is the association of the Pentacostal church, and evangelical movement in general, with the San Francisco earthquake. Winchester appears to believe that the evangelical right can be traced to its reaction to the San Francisco earthquake. One wonders if Winchester has ever heard of any of the several "Great Awakenings" which have happened in this country, the last of them occurring in the 1880s - well before 1906 - and all of them associated with a renewal of various evangelical movements in America.
Similarly Winchester's treatment of the effect of the San Francisco earthquake and fire on its artists centers largely around writers - not terribly surprising since Winchester is one. Painters, for example, aren't really mentioned and although he mentions the Pan American Exposition in passing, he never discusses the numerous artists of all stripes - painters, sculptors and the like - who came to San Francisco by the boatloads to work in the Pan American Exposition and who helped rebuild and beautify San Francisco. One of these was my great-grandfather, some of whose paintings still hang in my dining room and who was well enough known that his name was included in a two volume book of early California painters. I have more than a passing interest in this subject. For Winchester, however, the facts are only interesting so long as they support his point which is that little of artistic merit came out of San Francisco after the earthquake.
Winchester also dismisses San Francisco's contributions to commerce and technology. For Winchester business didn't help build the West and contribute to the betterment of its citizens and the country as a whole, it is only responsible exploitation and misery.
Perhaps the worst indictment of this meandering of a book, however, is the fact that Simon Winchester isn't really interested in people other than himself. This is a book not about the people who experienced the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, but about plate tectonics and the San Andreas Fault. Winchester leaves one witness of the earthquake in the ocean where he experienced the quake and subsequent waves, without ever coming back to tell us what happened to the man. He recounts the narratives of four people who were woken out of bed, but only so far as they can fix the time of the first shock. Once the time of the initial shock is established, Winchester never bothers to tell us what happened to them or to finish their stories. It is the fault of this storyteller that he believes only the fault has worth.
But perhaps not his only fault. Winchester obviously thinks himself important as he narrates the audiobook edition. One survives his horrible imitations of Scottish, Irish, Italian and other accents only by wincing. Winchester has no love for ordinary people who shop at places like Wal*Mart which, for Winchester, is the "kiss of death." This is perhaps the biggest problem with the book. It purports to be the history of a city and people for which Winchester displays contempt.
 Simon Winchster misses the mark May 25, 2008
Simon Winchester has written many good books. This is not one of them.
This is the fourth book by him I have read and it is by far the worst. His attempt to describe what happened in San Francisco in 1906 is long on non-connected rambling facts and short on a story. The first 175 pages are spent describing plate tectonics and his own personal travels across the US and the world. What is meant to be an informative introduction into the science of Geology turns into a poorly organized, unnecessarily long rambling with little connection to the story. The book is replete with single appearances of characters and events which have no barring on what happened in 1906, and whose only purpose is to show how much Mr. Winchester knows. This is a major problem which will will plague the book - a lack of focus.
This book was written without a unifying theme or subject, which is odd, since a very obviously subject exists: The City of San Francisco. Mr. Winchester instead makes himself the center of the story and focuses on his own journey rather than the events of 1906. At page 175, Mr. Winchester finally starts talking about the character and spirt of the city, and we see glimpses of a story being pulled together, only to let it slip away about 50 pages later. The 80 page chapter on the earthquake and fire was a compilation of 40 different stories that had no connection, except for their physical connection on the page.
The worst part of the book is unfortunately not the ramblings with copious footnotes and references, but Mr. Winchester's selective conclusions and commentary. On page 302 he claims the fire caused San Francisco to lose its dominance on the West Coast after the disaster of 1906 and "the city never regained its status, nor will it ever." Mr. Winchester makes only one passing reference to beat generation writers in the 1950's as the only event of cultural or financial significance to take place in San Francisco in the past 100 years. Not one mention was made about SF's contribution to the high tech industries, investment banking, or the arts. LA is apparently the capital of the west in his estimation. Apparently he is not aware that SF still attracts the ambitious and driven, as it did in 1849, unlike LA which only seems to attract crime and bad schools.
The book subtitle is "The Great American Earthquake" but he failed to mention its impact on the rest of the country (outside of the Pentecostal movement in LA, which I am still having difficulty understanding the connection). He fails to note that the burning of San Francisco indirectly resulted in the creation of Seattle. He describes (ad nauseum) his visit up to Alaska stopping in Skagway and Whitehorse, but failed to mention their significance in the second biggest gold rush in North America, the Yukon Gold Rush. Rather than comment on the parallels of the two biggest events that caused the most mass migration in modern history in the US, he instead uses this moment to spout off on the Wal-Mart which opened here and how the "Brutes of Bentonville" have "set me fretting about the state of the world even more than usual." (pg. 343)
Mr. Winchester has written some marvelous books which both educate and tell a good story. This one is packed with scientific information which sadly does not contribute to a story which does not materialize.
 Excellent, important-- and rambling April 30, 2008
Simon Winchester is one of those rare people who become fascinated not only by a story, but by all possible aspects of the story. At its best, this can produce a fascinating, entertaining survey that makes you want to dive into the story the way he did. At its worst, it can produce a discursive, almost disjointed, ramble through the story that makes you long for an editor. This book is somewhere in between those two extremes.
Winchester uses a single event, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, as the focal point where his investigations of geology, geography, economics, politics, entertainment, fashion, and history converge. It is absolutely fascinating material, and his style is perfect for its examination: conversational-- almost chatty-- but nonetheless academically rigorous.
The irritating thing about the book is that as Winchester is examining all of the threads in his story, he continually approaches then draws back, somewhat like a fly fisherman flicking his bait out. Eventually, we get to the actual earthquake, but it is a long and winding journey.
The book is important because it makes clear that we-- and especially those of us in the western US-- are literally living on borrowed time. Eventually, there will be one or more unimaginable tectonic or volcanic catastrophes. Of course, there is literally nothing we can do, other than leave-- maybe right now.
In summary, I liked this book a lot, and I think it's an important book. However, reading it can be something of a chore.
 Earthquakes. March 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
An excellent read about the world's earthquakes. Winchester does an excellent in this and his other similar books.
 Shaken, not stirred February 29, 2008
A friendly and place-sensitive story, rather more loosely framed around the San Francisco earthquake than the title and the dust jacket suggest. There are many, many detours down California roads and other byways. Most of them are enjoyable to those who get a kick out of California geography and history (any Kevin Starr fans out there?). The geological lessons are clear and engaging, and I'm thankful.
Three things mar it: sloppiness in details, personal meandering, and overreaching. By sloppiness I mean things like confusing Azusa with Azusa Street (a misstated connection that Winchester uses to riff on the rise of Pentecostal Christianity), repeatedly messing up the names of missions (Mission San Jose is not in San Jose, as the most cursory research points out) and compass points (Lancaster is north of Los Angeles, not "east of the easternmost suburbs") and an utterly puzzling way of bollixing up large figures: Alaska as 600,000 acres?!(It's supposed to be square miles). Perhaps his map was tilted and his calculator set to a different unit of measurement.
By meandering I mean putting in too much about his road trips (the campsite raccoons that begged for food, the anticlimactic visit to the Meteor Crater, the truck-stop waitress with the alluring, uh, pie).
And finally, he has a habit of stringing too many dubious capital-C conclusions out of the quake. Such as: Los Angeles beat San Francisco to greatness because of the quake? Well, not entirely. LA had other massive natural advantages, not least of which were multiples more space to grow and better rail links. The Pentecostal revival that was kindled in inner-city LA was already getting pretty hot by the time of the quake, and the quake wasn't that big in its growth. Pat Robertson may be the Pentecostals' fault, but he's not San Andreas's (ha). A digression on Angel Island and Chinese immigrants ... well ... interesting, good for a few graphs on post-quake records reconstruction, but not as a chapter that limps into view after the main event itself, purporting to describe the entire Chinese-American character.
But these were irritants, honestly. The overall story is California cities and their (at the moment) suspended death sentence. Clearly, coolly, vividly expressed in Winchester's telling. The killer San Andreas snakes past just a few miles west of where I sit now, slithering alongside my evening commute home. I've been casting nervous glances in its direction all week.
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