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Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations and Civilization - Hardcover

Robinson, Andrew

 
9780500518595: Earth-Shattering Events: Earthquakes, Nations and Civilization
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0500518599 ISBN 13: 9780500518595
Verlag: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Since antiquity, on every continent, human beings in search of attractive landscapes and economic prosperity have made a Faustian bargain with the risk of devastation by an earthquake. Today, around half of the world’s largest cities – as many as sixty – lie in areas of major seismic activity. Many, such as Lisbon, Naples, San Francisco, Teheran, and Tokyo, have been severely damaged or destroyed by earthquakes in the past. But throughout history, starting with ancient Jericho, Rome, and Sparta, cities have proved to be extraordinarily resilient: only one, Port Royal in the Caribbean, was abandoned after an earthquake. Earth-Shattering EventsToday, seismologists can monitor the vibration of the planet second by second and the movement of tectonic plates millimeter by millimeter. Yet, even in the 21st century, great earthquakes are still essentially "acts of God," striking with much less warning than volcanoes, floods, hurricanes, and even tornadoes and tsunamis.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Andrew Robinson is the author of twenty-five books in the arts and sciences, nine of them on aspects of Indian history and culture. They include two definitive biographies: Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye, described by V. S. Naipaul as ‘an extraordinarily good, detailed and selfless book’, and the coauthored Rabindranath Tagore: The Myriad-Minded Man. He holds degrees from Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, has been a Visiting Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and is currently a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.

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A groundbreaking survey of the cultural, political and social impacts of major earthquakes of the modern era.

From antiquity until the present day, on every continent, human beings have made a Faustian bargain with the risk of periodic devastation by earthquake. Today around half of the world's largest cities - as many as sixty - lie in areas of major seismic activity. This book seeks to understand exactly how human agency and great earthquakes have interacted, not only in the short term but also in the long perspective of history. For over the long term, the impact of a great earthquake depends not only the chance factors of its epicentre, magnitude and timing but also on human factors: the political, economic, social, intellectual, religious and cultural resources specific to a region's history. While physical devastation has in some times and places led to permanent decline and collapse, elsewhere earthquakes have presented opportunities for renewal, the cities they destroy proving to be extraordinarily resilient. After its wholesale destruction by an earthquake and fire in 1906, San Francisco went on to flourish, giving birth in the 1950s to the high-tech industrial area on the San Andreas fault now known as Silicon Valley. The political and cultural reverberations that have played out in the aftermath of earthquake disasters have sometimes brought profound change.

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Verlag
Thames & Hudson Ltd
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0500518599
ISBN 13 
9780500518595
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
256
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Verantwortliche Person
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