A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
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

Product Description

Unleashed by ancient geologic forces, a magnitude 8.25 earthquake rocked San Francisco in the early hours of April 18, 1906. Less than a minute later, the city lay in ruins. Bestselling author Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities to this extraordinary event, exploring the legendary earthquake and fires that spread horror across San Francisco and northern California in 1906 as well as its startling impact on American history and, just as important, what science has recently revealed about the fascinating subterranean processes that produced it—and almost certainly will cause it to strike again.

Customer Reviews: Read 88 more reviews...

3 out of 5 stars

The rough materials for a great book October 9, 2005
63 out of 71 found this review helpful

Simon Winchester's love of learning and information is so incredibly infectious that even at his roughest his books do not fail to illuminate and interest. As with KRAKATOA, Winchester in A CRACK AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD takes a momentous geological event--in this case, the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906--and proceed to tell us as many stories leading up to and out of it as he possibly can, covering not merely accounts of the event itself (particularly the disastrous fires that came from it) but also ways of understanding the event within its multiple contexts. He tells us much about the commerical and social history of California as well as of the geology of the San Andreas Fault, Iceland, Missouri, Indonesia... s you can see, at times it _does_ get a little much. Winchester loves to amble through all these events at his own pace, but the result is a book that often reads as if it were hardly edited. His prose leaps about with weak transitions (along the lines of "As we have seen earlier," "And this brings us to Enrico Caruso," "And this is not the first time he shall appear in these pages, as we shall see," etc.) and seems as irruptive and eruptive as the events he chronicles; his intriguing and edifying narrative would have surely benefited from more studied editing and more careful organization. There's a wonderful book buried in here, but as with some of Winchester's earlier books this seems rushed and undigested.

3 out of 5 stars

Good book but the author rambles December 28, 2005
30 out of 35 found this review helpful

The book starts VERY slow. The first hundred pages rate only 1- or 2-stars. Twice I seriously considered putting it down not to pick it up again, but I plodded through and I'm glad I did.

If you can make it past the first hundred pages, the rest of the book improves considerably, though much of it relates only peripherally to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (you're halfway through the book before the earthquake takes place). That is good at times, as it gives the reader a fuller understanding of the context in which the quake ocurred, as well as the underlying causes of it and the resultant destruction.

The reader will get a basic understanding of "Plate Tectonics," and the way the various plates interact in the California area (as well as other parts of the world). The author is obviously one who loves his area of study.

Yes, the author is pretentious and arrogant at times, and he seems to display a bias against Bible-believing Christians. Keeping that in mind, it was a book worth reading.

1 out of 5 stars

This book should have been called... October 10, 2005
21 out of 28 found this review helpful

This book should have been called "The science of tectonic plates, geological and philosophical musings and the history of the San Francisco earthquake considered while on a road trip."
Sound appealing? If so, this might be a good book for you.

Unfortunately, I purchased this book pretty much exclusively with an interest in human stories and events related to the San Francisco earthquake. The net result for me was a bloated, verbose, meandering narrative maze that was entirely unsatisfying.

I was worried I had made a bad purchase halfway through the never-ending prologue in which the author indicates he is taken with the gaia theory that the earth as a whole can be defined as a living entity.

The author came off as in love with the sound of his own voice (or was he being paid by the word?). I was offended at what amounted to a cheap shot that the author took at the religious paradigm of people in prior centuries. Reflecting on the huge Lisbon earthquake several centuries prior, he noted that the unsophisticated people present lacked the intellectual capacity to understand the earthquake in any other way than "God caused it." A historian is supposed to consider his or her subjects within the context of their own times and not condescendingly refer their inferiority.

I read the author's book "The Professor and the Madman" and enjoyed it. But this book was so off target that I could not even finish it.

5 out of 5 stars

Another Tale of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 October 9, 2005
18 out of 19 found this review helpful

Simon Winchester is a storyteller and he rambles around the tale of the great earthquake of a century ago. This is not the definitive account of the 1906 quake but the account of what Mr. Winchester found to be interesting -- fortunately it is interesting for the reader too.

The book is a wonderful geology book for the non-science reader as Mr. Winchester lays out why the quake occurred where it occurred (see the maps within) with vignettes with the fallout from the quake. He also makes clear that the next San Francisco earthquake is just down the road and we are no more prepared for that one either. The book cover itself is innovative and almost worth the price of the book. For the reader desiring a more traditional history of the 1906 quake, see Dan Kurzman's "Disaster: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906" (2001).

2 out of 5 stars

The Emperor's Clothes December 15, 2005
14 out of 16 found this review helpful

There comes a point in a writer's life when he can dash off anything and stature alone demands his legion of fans trot out the trumpets. Winchester's "The Professor and the Madman" was a fine book, and Krakatoa had its strong points, despite 100 pages of tedious geology. The N.Y Times reviewer of Crack In the Earth stated (paraphrasing) that he hated this book so much that he wanted to kick it across his back yard, suggesting it was written by Austin Powers. The same N.Y. Times which annointed Winchester for his previous books. Let us be clear on one thing: this book is not about the great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. It is about Simon Winchester's adventures with rocks, from one end of the Pacific Rim to another, with a section on the great earthquake. It takes him 200 meandering, self-indulgent pages to get to San Francisco, at which point he rehashes every known detail of the city on the cusp of disaster, with none of the passion or cohesion of previous authors. Fifty pages later, he finally addresses the earthquake, again in vignettes both disjointed and mind numbing. And what evidence, other than the author's assertions, is there that this catastrophe led to the rise of the Pentecostal movement, and just who was anxiously awaiting that clarification? I have read virtually every book on the 1906 tragedy since I was a college student in the Bay Area in the '70's. There are many fine books on the San Francisco Earthquake, but because of his stature, many will see only Winchester's feeble tome. Gordon Thomas' and Max Witt's "The San Francisco Earthquake" was the first to challenge the long-standing assertions about the allegedly brave mayor, Eugene Schmitz, and the activities of the military during those terrible days, and is a marvelous, compelling read. Gladys Hansen's "Denial of Disaster" stands alone for its research, insight, and extraordinary photographs. For sheer drama and historical recreation of San Francisco, and for an unforgettable collection of characters, my wife and I are still touting James Dalessandro's remarkable novel, 1906, to our friends. And lost in the juggernaut of Winchester's p.r. barrage is a book that really rips into the human folly that resulted in the burning and loss of 30,000 buildings, Dennis Smith's "San Francisco Burning", which, unlike Winchester's book, is actually about San Francisco and the disaster. My hope is that people will find their way to some of the books that really tell this extraordinary story. I came to Crack In The Earth with an open mind, hopeful that Winchester would focus on the disaster and add to our knowledge and understanding. I had to repeatedly force myself to plow through it, hoping it would improve. It never did. The subject deserves a much better effort than this.

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