Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
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Product Description
September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history--and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devestating personal tragedy.
Using Cline's own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man's heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac's Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.
Spotlight Customer Reviews:
Summary:
The politics is revealing
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Comment:
I really enjoyed the suspensefully written, detailed narrative of the event itself, but what this book also has that others often don't get into is the ways in which American science and policies always seem to get warped by our own parochial perspectives. A major irony in this book is that American meteorologists couldn't give Cuban meteorologists their due and benefit from what the Cubans knew. So our weirdness around Cuba and our need to feel somehow superior to the Latin parts of the Americas goes way back. God forbid the Cubans should know more about hurricanes (whose path they all live in) than bureaucratic American scientists, even a hundred years ago.
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Summary:
Amazing book; see the History Channel Documentary too!
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Comment:
Okay, when I first bought this book, I began reading it and was disinterested, as was my mother, by the meteorological information. We'd both been reading historical nonfiction recently and were turned away by impersonal accounts and/or jargon we didn't understand.
Truth be told, we didn't bother to pass the first chapter.
I am SO GLAD I gave it another chance!!!
I saw the documentary of the same name on the History Channel, and bought that DVD, and then actually read the book - let me tell you, it is as compelling as any dramatic book I've ever read, and the stories are all true -
So if you start this book and become disenchanted at the first chapter or two, please hang in there, because it is an amazing literary feat to create such a true and compelling account of such an event, and Erik Larson did just that. I am forever a fan of his.
(I also highly recommend "The Great Deluge" by Douglas Brinkley...amazing!)
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Summary:
Good book...
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Comment:
This books takes you right into the lives of the people of Galvanston. Great descriptions of the actual events at the time. A little less science and history of meteorology would have suited me but some may like the information.
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Summary:
MAKING OF A CLASSIC
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Comment:
There is no doubt Larson has written the definitive book on this subject for some time to come. As reviews on this site attest, there are few who will not find this a great read. What makes it so good? Larson's book makes a great story, is historical, and scientific.
First and foremost it's a great story, well written. The author describes the storm as 'an awakening of molecules' in the tropics. The reader, like the hurricane, moves closer and closer to the action, knowing the magnitude of what's about to happen. There is never a dull moment.
There is much history in this book as well. Larson describes other hurricanes and disasters, shedding light on the action in Galveston. He also gives us a good feel for the time period.
Though this is not a scientific text by any means, the basics of storms and weather are explained well, at a level of detail appropriate for a work of this kind. The end result is a book certain to be a classic, read for years to come.
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Summary:
Man's hubrus confronting nature and losing
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Comment:
I love Erik Larson's books so my bias is on the table. Again he has taught as well as entertained in this tragic story of misguided egos and overwhelming suffering at the hands of a hurricane in 1900 Galveston. The early weather service in the United States and their selfish interests in maintaining a public image at the cost of peoples lives is a bleak testimonial to the flaws in some people's ethics.
The description of the storm's power and the survival stories are amazing as well as those of the storm's aftermath make this a great read.
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