Isaac's Storm: The Drowning of Galveston, 8 September 1900 - Couverture souple

Larson, Erik

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1841152811 ISBN 13 : 9781841152813

Editeur : Fourth Estate Ltd, 1999

Synopsis

Galveston, Texas, 1900. Reports of a storm in the Gulf of Mexico are relayed to Isaac Cline, chief observer of the new Weather Bureau. But storms stay out at sea and veer East to run parallel to the coast normally. This one didn’t …

Isaac Cline was confident of his ability to predict the weather: he had new technology at his disposal, ‘perfect science’, and, like America itself, he was sure that he was in control of his world, that the new century would be the American century, that the future was man’s to command. And the coastal city of Galveston was a prosperous, enthusiastic place – a jewel of progress and contentment, a model for the new century.

The storm blew up in Cuba. It was, in modern jargon, an extreme hurricane – and it did not circle around the Gulf of Mexico as storms routinely did. On 8 September 1900 it ploughed straight into Galveston. It was the meteorological equivalent of the Big One. It was to be the worst natural disaster ever to befall America to this day: between six and ten thousand people died, including Isaac Cline’s wife and unborn child. With them died Cline’s and America’s hubris: the storm had simply blown them away. Told with a novelist’s skill this is the true story of an awful and terrible natural catastrophe.

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Erik Larson is an author of two previous books, including the critically acclaimed ‘Lethal Passage’, about a boy and a gun. Currently an award-winning writer for ‘Time’ magazine, he formerly wrote features stories for the front page of the ‘Wall Street Journal’ and taught non-fiction writing at the Johns Hopkins Writers’ Seminars and San Francisco State University. He lives in Seattle.

À propos de la quatrième de couverture

On 8 September 1900, the deadliest hurricane in American history ploughed into the unprepared port of Galveston, Texas. One-hundred-and-fifty mile an hour winds shredded clapperboard houses with the force of dynamite. The sea followed, a solid wall of water twenty feet high. The city's highest point was nine feet above sea level. Overnight between six and ten thousand people lost their lives, houses were reduced to matchwood, and bodies were strewn miles inland across the prairie. It was, and still is, the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States.

At the turn of the century the new US Weather Bureau had the finest forecasting technology at their disposal. With this 'perfect science' they were confident they were in control of the world, that the new century would be the American century. And in Galveston, Texas they had one of their most dependable meteorologists, Isaac Cline. Cline, like the rest of America, believed that man's ingenuity had tamed nature. He believed there was nothing to fear.

Fatally, Cline failed to read the signs until it was too late. By then, the bath-houses on the sea- front were being crushed by rolling breakers, children were playing unawares in the rising water, the railway line was under water and ships in the bay were fighting for their lives.

Vividly recounted, and filled with the testimony of characters who lived through the cataclysm, Isaac's Storm is a compelling story of hubris, tragedy and, for some, remarkable and unlikely survival in the face of a vicious tempest, indifferent to human accomplishment and human life.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Fourth Estate Ltd
• Date d'édition: 1999
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1841152811
• ISBN 13: 9781841152813
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 400
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible