Magnitude 8: Earthquakes and Life along the San Andreas Fault / Edition 1

by Philip L. Fradkin

Overview

Environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin offers a vivid history of earthquakes and an eloquent guide to the San Andreas Fault, the seismic scar that bisects the Golden State's spectacular scenery. The author includes dramatic stories of legendary earthquakes elsewhere: in New York, New England, the central Mississippi River Valley, Europe, and the Far East. Combining human and natural dramas, he places the reader at the epicenter of the most invisible, unpredictable, and feared of the earth's violent phenomena. On the eve of the millennium, as cyberspace crackles with apocalyptic visions, Fradkin reaches beyond the earthshaking moment to examine the mythology, culture, social implications, politics, and science of earthquakes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520221192
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/29/1999
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Philip L. Fradkin is the author of six acclaimed books on the American West, including The Seven States of California (California, 1997) and A River No More (California, 1996). He shared a Pulitzer Prize as a journalist, served as assistant secretary in the state agency responsible for overseeing seismic matters, and for the last twenty years has lived adjacent to the San Andreas Fault in California's Marin County.

Table of Contents

Preface

1 San Francisco (the Present)
2 Terra Non Firma
3 The Old and New Worlds (1580-1812)
4 Fort Tejon (1857)
5 Hayward (1868)
6 San Francisco (1906)
7 Parkfield (1966)
8 Lorna Prieta (1989)
9 Northridge (1994)

Appendix
Acknowledgments
Suggested Reading
Source Notes
Index