Book Review: A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester

Written by Clive Maxfield March 09, 2010 Hits: 1925 Favorites

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This book rates Four Cool Beans I just finished reading "A Crack in The Edge of the World – America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906" by Simon Winchester. In addition to discovering all sorts of facts about the earthquake itself, I learned a whole lot of stuff about a whole lot of stuff.

The author's style isn’t for everyone. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, you'll see that they are a "mixed bag" – the majority of the 100+ reviews are 4-star and 5-star, but a lot of readers voted it down because the book does meander around a little bouncing from one topic to another.

I can understand why some folks may find the presentation to be not quite what they expected, because the author does not restrict himself only to an account of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake itself. Instead, he mixes geology with the commercial and social history of California; scientific data with his personal thoughts and writings from folks who lived through the event; and a whole bunch of other stuff (for example, the 1906 earthquake gave a major boost to the Pentecostal branch of Christianity).

Like I say, this style might not be for everyone, but I personally like to learn tidbits of trivia and nuggets of knowledge. This book provided a huge amount of background into the early days of California and gave me a lot of insight into the way things were... such as the way in which Chinese immigrants were treated (actually, mistreated is more accurate).

The thing is, scientists and geologists agree that there's going to be another monster seismic event on the San Andreas Fault – it's not a case of "if" – it's a question of "when". Read this book and you'll have a much better idea as to the ramifications of such an event.

For myself, I will be thinking about what I've learned for a long time, so my personal view is that this book rates a "Four Cool Bean Salute".

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Written by :

Clive Maxfield