The Johnstown Flood
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.70 (562 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B0009YT418 |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 219 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-08-03 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
. His other acclaimed books include The Johnstown Flood, TheGreat Bridge, Brave Companions, 1776,The Greater Journey, and The Wright Brothers. David McCullough has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, for Truman and John Adams, and twice received the National Book Award, for The Path Between the Seas
Riveting account of a human-caused mass disaster I thoroughly enjoyed The Johnstown Flood. It is a most fitting premier work for David McCullough who is one of my favorite authors of historical accounts.I found the book particularly compelling as it described the convergence of events that led up to the faulty construction of the dam. Ultimately, when the dam broke following days of torrential rain, the result should have been no surprise. Of course, in an age with minimal mass communication, there was little way to warn the people living down-river. Add to that fact the several times that warnings had gone out about the dam giving way, and you have an unavoidable outcome o. Gary L. Gill said This was unfortunate in that I don't like reading lists however the minute by minute account of. In typical McCullough fashion, this book is full of details and is properly researched to present all of the facts. Unfortunately, the details included detailed lists of the dead, missing and presumed dead which covered about 1/This was unfortunate in that I don't like reading lists however the minute by minute account of Gary L. Gill In typical McCullough fashion, this book is full of details and is properly researched to present all of the facts. Unfortunately, the details included detailed lists of the dead, missing and presumed dead which covered about 1/4 of the book. This was unfortunate in that I don't like reading lists however the minute by minute account of how people survived and how those that didn't perished was well documented. McCullough has a good book on the details of not only what happened during the flood but also the reasons behind it. A good read for those interested in the history of this country during the age of the Robber Barons.. of the book. This was unfortunate in that I don't like reading lists however the minute by minute account of how people survived and how those that didn't perished was well documented. McCullough has a good book on the details of not only what happened during the flood but also the reasons behind it. A good read for those interested in the history of this country during the age of the Robber Barons.. CatMan said A Great Book on the Great Flood of Johnstown. This is an excellent accounting of a devastating flood to a town in the late 19th century. I had always heard of the Johnstown Flood but didn't really know anything about it. I grew up in the mountains and knew that prolonged periods of rain can bring about a great flood that can cause devastation to a wide area. This flood was partly because of much rain but it was also caused by a dam break that could have been easily avoided if the proper maintenance had been done. McCullough does a great job of giving us the history of the dam. Of how it was orginally built and was eventually bought by the great financial and industrial t
The stunning story of one of America’s great disasters, a preventable tragedy of Gilded Age America, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough.At the end of the nineteenth century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation’s burgeoning industrial prosperity. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly.. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal.Graced by David McCullough’s remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood
His award-winning histories of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Panama Canal were preceded by this account of the disastrous dam failure that drowned Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1889. His account is unforgettable: "The wave kept on coming straight toward him, heading for the very heart of the city. The height of the wall of water was at least thirty-six feet at the center. The history of civil engineering may sound boring, but in David McCullough's hands it is, well, riveting. --Mary Ellen Curtin. Written while the last survivors of the flood were still alive, McCullough's narrative weaves the stories of the town, the wealthy men who owned the dam, and the forces of nature into a seamless whole. The drowning