The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes

By Conevery Bolton Valencius,

Book cover of The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes

Book description

From December 1811 to February 1812, massive earthquakes shook the middle Mississippi Valley, collapsing homes, snapping large trees midtrunk, and briefly but dramatically reversing the flow of the continent's mightiest river. For decades, people puzzled over the causes of the quakes, but by the time the nation began to recover…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Amazingly, the seismic disasters that this book documents, which took place in the middle of the United States in the nineteenth century, have been almost entirely forgotten by scientists and planners.

How can earthquakes remake an entire region, physically and socially—and yet to be erased from history within two generations? This is a mind-boggling story about the short attention span of those entrusted to protect against environmental destruction.

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