The Great Quake Debate: The Crusader, the Skeptic, and the Rise of Modern Seismology

by Susan Hough

Overview

In the first half of the twentieth century, when seismology was still in in its infancy, renowned geologist Bailey Willis faced off with fellow high-profile scientist Robert T. Hill in a debate with life-or-death consequences for the millions of people migrating west. Their conflict centered on a consequential question: Is southern California earthquake country?

These entwined biographies of Hill and Willis offer a lively, accessible account of the ways that politics and financial interests influenced the development of earthquake science. During this period of debate, severe quakes in Santa Barbara (1925) and Long Beach (1933) caused scores of deaths and a significant amount of damage, offering turning points for scientific knowledge and mainstreaming the idea of earthquake safety.

The Great Quake Debate sheds light on enduring questions surrounding the environmental hazards of our dynamic planet. What challenges face scientists bearing bad news in the public arena? How do we balance risk and the need to sustain communities and cities? And how well has California come to grips with its many faults?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295750729
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	05/17/2022
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	1,100,750
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Susan Hough is a research seismologist in Pasadena, California. Her popular-science books include Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction and Richter's Scale: Measure of an Earthquake, Measure of a Man. She is a past president of the Seismological Society of America and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Prologue: Setting the Stage 3

1 Bailey Willis 16

2 Robert T. Hill 32

3 Intersecting Orbits 50

4 Parting Company and Facing Disaster 81

5 Golden State 101

6 Framing the Debate 117

7 At the Epicenter 138

8 The Prediction 153

9 The Book 178

10 Retrenchment 204

11 The Climax 222

12 Settling the Score 235

13 Theater 244

Epilogue: Legacies and Lessons 258

Acknowledgments 275

Notes 277

Selected Bibliography 305

Index 307

What People are Saying About This

Alexandra Witze

"A delightful, timely glimpse into a little-known but fascinating debate among earthquake scientists regarding the seismic threat to southern California."

Callan Bentley

"Hough is the ideal author for this story, being a seismologist herself, steeped in the history of her trade, and a masterful raconteur. Whether it's how to reopen the economy after a pandemic, or what to do about climate change, the great quake debate was a precursor for modern tussles between science and policy."

Editorial Reviews

"Hough's book...touches the history of a subfield of earth science that has been only rarely studied before: seismology."

H-Net

"Hough presents a well-researched narrative...Interesting read, tracing the history of this seismic and scientific debate."

Choice

"This book is historical and biographical writing at its very best."

Environment and History

04/27/2020

Hough (Earthshaking Science), former president of the Seismological Society of America, blends science and history in her occasionally illuminating but overstretched study of geological controversies of the early 20th century. Focusing on the then-pressing question of whether the Los Angeles area faced “significant earthquake hazard,” she intertwines the stories of two preeminent geologists, Bailey Willis and Robert Thomas Hill. Willis supposedly announced in 1925 that a severe L.A. quake was imminent, but, as Hough demonstrates, this was exaggerated by irresponsible reporters, who ignored Willis’s significant qualifications—he said no one could know exactly when the quake would occur—to turn his speculation into a definitive statement that the disaster would happen in 10 years. Similarly, in 1928 Hill published Southern California Geology and Los Angeles Earthquakes; though he had publicly disagreed with Willis that a major quake was at all likely, he intended the book as a sober scientific work, and was dismayed when his publishers issued it with a cover blurb directly refuting Willis’s statements and stating that L.A. was the city safest “from Acts of God” in the U.S. Though Hough’s subject might have made for an intriguing article, at full book-length it makes for a thin work. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"The Great Quake Debate gives all readers—historians, scientists, and interested non-experts—excellent insights into the unfolding of scientific community and scientific investigations of earthquakes in the United States, a topic crucial to public and private life then, and still."

Pacific Historical Review

"Seismologist Susan Hough's account offers a revealing glimpse of the personalities and issues within America's geologic community in the early twentieth century. But it also can be read as a cautionary tale about science and society."

Natural History Magazine