Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Dangerous Place : California's Unsettling Fate by Marc Reisner ISBN: 0-679-42011-8 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 11 February, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.1 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A fascinating and frightening look at what might be
Comment: A 7.2m earthquake ruptures on the Hayward Fault one February day in California and the chaos begins. Unreinforced buildings topple to the ground, freeway overpasses buckle, and the cantilever structure of the Bay Bridge falls into the bay below. Several thousand people are killed by the event. More troubles ensue as the fault destroys canals, power lines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, and highways (all built across the fault) that could bring help and aid to the dazed survivors. Even the airports are knocked out of commission as their runways, built on bay mud) are turned to jello by the ground motion. Loma Prieta was a whimper compared to what the Hayward fault has unleashed.
This is a fictional scenario of course, yet it leans heavily on what could be. The events are based on long conversations the author had with experts in the earthquake field. Anyone who has read Cadillac Desert knows the power of Marc Reisner's ability to analyze and explore a topic.
The only "con" for me was the book was too short! It was so gripping I couldn't put it down but I still wanted more. A book double or triple the size would've been fine.
Please also note, that the book is being published 3 years after Mr. Reisner's death. As such, it does not seem the book was in it's absolute final form prior to being released. There are only three chapters and they don't seem quite balanced. He also launches into his scenario (the last half of the book) rather abruptly, requiring the reader to be alert. I didn't mark it down in terms of a rating as I was expecting this (and the quality of the material is high enough to overlook this oddity) but I mention it here to warn the reader.
Still, while it lacks in polish is more than compensated for in it's urgency. If you've been wasting time getting your earthquake kit together stop fooling yourself. These things will happen and what's more, it could be worse than what's described in this book. Something every Californian should read.
Rating: 3
Summary: Two books. One cover..............
Comment: A Dangerous Place begins as a concise, well-paced description of California's seismic potential and precarious water management systems. Blending history with present day infrastructure requirements, Reisner lays bare the fragility inherent when a populace exceeds the environments ability to support it. Though natural resources may fail on their own, Reisner suspensefully charts the mayhem when the inevitable 7.0 temblor arrives to accelerate the process.
Indeed, through two-thirds of the book, A Dangerous Place is an excellent, non-fictional read. But, then, for some inexplicable reason, Reisner decides to make believe. In the final third, the author imagines the next big earthquake and attempts the difficult shift from fast-paced factual reporting to fully fictional, wide-eyed, first-person narrative. It's him and his family against the fantasy earthquake. It's thrilling, it's chilling.......
Well, no, it's corny.
Reisner's shift from fact to fiction seriously harms his ability to achieve his goal. Where a feigned natural disaster is desired, one may always rent a 70's era movie starring Ernest Borgnine. Yet, when one desires to be provided the facts in an exciting, hard-hitting style, one would hope to have access to the format with which Mr. Reisner began. Had he maintained it, A Dangerous Place would merit 4 to 5 stars.
Rating: 5
Summary: Marc Reisner ¿ his last book, dammit
Comment: What a great guy Marc Reisner was. He wrote A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate as he was dying of cancer, and it's not just a benchmark of California's environmental history but also a profound and emotional valedictory effort. Living as I do within ¼ mile of the grumbling and growling Hayward Fault, I found Reisner's projections of the cataclysmic effects of the Big One to be more than unsettling. Those of us who are priviledged or doomed to live in this glorious state cannot fail to take heed of the picture he paints of the likely events surrounding our upcoming tectonic hiccups, belches, and sneezes.
The book is divided into 3 sections. The first retells Californias environmental history from the era of Junipero Serra's mission system right up to our own freeway system. The middle section deals with the fundamentals of plate tectonics. But it's that 3rd section that looks forward to (shudder) a hypothetical eruption of the Hayward Fault in 2005 that is most gripping. Yikes.
Sayonara to a great environmentalist and author.
 |
Title: Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner ISBN: 0140178244 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 01 January, 1993 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
 |
Title: The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire by Mark Arax, Rick Wartzman ISBN: 1586480286 Publisher: PublicAffairs Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
 |
Title: Where I Was From by JOAN DIDION ISBN: 0679433325 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 23 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
 |
Title: The Great Thirst: Californians and Water-A History, Revised Edition by Norris, Jr. Hundley ISBN: 0520224566 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: 07 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
 |
Title: Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson ISBN: 1893554732 Publisher: Encounter Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
