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Simon Winchester
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A Crack In The Edge Of The World: America And The Great California Earthquake Of 1906by Simon WinchesterISBN 0060572000 (0-06-057200-0)
Softcover, Perennial
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Crack in the Edge of the World: America And the Great California Earthquake of 1906'Book summary:Geologically speaking, 1906 was a violent year: powerful, destructive earthquakes shook the ground from Taiwan to South America, while in Italy, Mount Vesuvius erupted. And in San Francisco, a large earthquake occurred just after five in the morning on April 18--and that was just the beginning. The quake caused a conflagration that raged for the next three days, destroying much of the American West's greatest city. The fire, along with water damage and other indirect acts, proved more destructive than the earthquake itself, but insurance companies tried hard to dispute this fact since few people carried earthquake insurance. It was also the world's first major natural disaster to have been extensively photographed and covered by the media, and as a result, it left "an indelible imprint on the mind of the entire nation."
Though the epicenter of this marvelously constructed book is San Francisco, Winchester covers much more than just the disaster. He discusses how this particular quake led to greater scientific study of quakes in an attempt to understand the movements of the earth. Trained at Oxford University as a geologist, Winchester is well qualified to discuss the subject, and he clearly explains plate tectonics theory (first introduced in 1968) and the creation of the San Andreas Fault, along with the geologic exploration of the American West in the late 19th century and the evolution of technology used to measure and predict earthquakes. He also covers the social and political shifts caused by the disaster, such as the way that Pentecostalists viewed the quake as "a message of divine approval" and used it to recruit new members into the church, and the rise in the local Chinese population. With many records destroyed in the fire, there was no way to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, and thus many more Chinese were granted citizenship than would have otherwise been. Filled with eyewitness accounts, vivid descriptions, crisp prose, and many delightful meanderings, A Crack in the Edge of the World is a thoroughly absorbing tale. --Shawn Carkonen [via]
More editions of A Crack In The Edge Of The World: America And The Great California Earthquake Of 1906:
- A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906: ISBN 0060826150 (0-06-082615-0)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - A Crack In The Edge Of The World: America And The Great California Earthquake Of 1906: ISBN 0060571993 (0-06-057199-3)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - A Crack in the Edge of the World: America And the Great California Earthquake of 1906: ISBN 0060572000 (0-06-057200-0)
Softcover, Perennial
- A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906: ISBN 0060826150 (0-06-082615-0)
The Day the World Exploded: The Earthshaking Catastrophe at Krakatoaby Simon Winchester , Dwight Jon Zimmerman, Jason ChinISBN 0061239828 (0-06-123982-8)
Hardcover, Collins
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The Fracture Zone: A Return to the Balkansby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060954949 (0-06-095494-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fracture Zone: A Return to the Balkans'Book summary:Simon Winchester, a British newspaper reporter for 30 years and the author of 13 books (including The Professor and the Madman), has turned his attention to the Balkans, an area he visited years ago on a road trip from Vienna to Istanbul--a journey he retraced in the spring of 1999. The Fracture Zone describes both of those trips, concentrating on the history and character of the region more than the recent war and its aftermath. Winchester has spent most of his career as a foreign correspondent, but his more recent occupations as historian and a writer for Condé Nast Traveler are in evidence here. Winchester's angle on the Balkans is unique and well written: those who have been bewildered at best and bored at worst by the Balkan conflict may find that The Fracture Zone captures their interest better than hundreds of news accounts of war atrocities. "Why is there, and seemingly always has been, this dire inevitability about the Balkans being so fractious and unsettled a corner of the world?" Winchester wonders aloud. That eternal question continues to plague world statesmen and, though not fully answered here, affords the opportunity for an interesting exploration. [via]
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Korea: A Walk Through The Land Of Miraclesby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060750448 (0-06-075044-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Korea: A Walk Through The Land Of Miracles'Book summary:In the late 1980s, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester set out on foot to discover the Republic of Korea -- from its southern tip to the North Korean border -- in order to set the record straight about this enigmatic and elusive land.
Fascinating for its vivid presentation of historical and geographic detail, Korea is that rare book that actually defines a nation and its people. Winchester's gift for capturing engaging characters in true, compelling stories provides us with a treasury of enchanting and informed insight on the culture, language, history, and politics of this little-known corner of Asia.
With a new introduction by the author, Korea is a beautiful journey through a mysterious country and a memorable addition to the many adventures of Simon Winchester.
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Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883by Simon WinchesterISBN 0060838590 (0-06-083859-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded August 27, 1883'Book summary:In Krakatoa, the author of The Map That Changed the World and The Professor and the Madman focuses his considerable research powers on one of the most cataclysmic events of modern history: the volcanic eruption, in 1883, of the Southeast Asian island of Krakatoa, which resulted in the deaths of 36,000 people and sent shock-waves around the world. But what at the time was a mysterious, almost supernatural phenomenon has become, under the precepts of the contemporary science of plate tectonics, explicable if no less tragic. Winchester veers between eyewitness accounts by survivors and the limited scientific measurements of the time in an attempt to describe the indescribable. The event "is still said to be the most violent explosion ever recorded and experienced by modern man," he writes. "Six cubic miles of rock had been blasted out of existence, had been turned into pumice and ash and uncountable billions of particles of dust." Yet words and numbers can barely hint at the scale of the calamity, which resulted in tsunamis that washed whole villages into the ocean and forever changed the very topography of the area. The author also explores the social and cultural topography, noting, "Orthodox Islam, its revival in part triggered by tragic events such as the great cataclysm, was totally transformed in Java during the nineteenth century, with fundamentalism, militancy, and profound hostility to non-Muslims its watchwords." At times Winchester seems to overstate his case, and the link he finds between Krakatoa and the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Islamic world isnt especially convincing. But, by weaving together the disaster with science, communications, politics, religion, and economics, he has come up with a comprehensive and often fascinating glimpse into the way the world, and our perception of it, can change in an instant. --Shawn Conner [via]
More editions of Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883:
- Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883: ISBN 006093736X (0-06-093736-X)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883: ISBN 0066212855 (0-06-621285-5)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded August 27, 1883: ISBN 0060838590 (0-06-083859-0)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, August 27, 1883: ISBN 006093736X (0-06-093736-X)
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The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham and the Making of a Masterpieceby Simon WinchesterISBN 0061562769 (0-06-156276-9)
Softcover, Harperluxe
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Loved China: Joseph Needham and the Making of a Masterpiece'Book summary:In sumptuous and illuminating detail Simon Winchester chronicles the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who turned his eccentric genius on the study of China. In 1937 Joseph Needham fell in love with a visiting Chinese student. He soon became fascinated by China, and his mistress persuaded him to travel to her home country. Thus began his undying passion for the world's most populous nation.Needham tackled one of the great, unanswered historical questions: Why did a nation that had invented so much and had enjoyed 5,000 years of flourishing civilization, fail to undergo an industrial revolution, and instead spend so many modern years mired in poverty and racked by instability and revolution? By the time he died, Needham had produced seventeen immense volumes on China, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopaedist ever.Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping history of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale by one of the world's inimitable storytellers. [via]
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The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdomby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060884592 (0-06-088459-2)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom'Book summary:In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"New York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"Time) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.
No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting Chinese student, with whom he began a lifelong affair.
He soon became fascinated with China, and his mistress swiftly persuaded the ever-enthusiastic Needham to travel to her home country, where he embarked on a series of extraordinary expeditions to the farthest frontiers of this ancient empire. He searched everywhere for evidence to bolster his conviction that the Chinese were responsible for hundreds of mankind's most familiar innovationsincluding printing, the compass, explosives, suspension bridges, even toilet paperoften centuries before the rest of the world. His thrilling and dangerous journeys, vividly recreated by Winchester, took him across war-torn China to far-flung outposts, consolidating his deep admiration for the Chinese people.
After the war, Needham was determined to tell the world what he had discovered, and began writing his majestic Science and Civilisation in China, describing the country's long and astonishing history of invention and technology. By the time he died, he had produced, essentially single-handedly, seventeen immense volumes, marking him as the greatest one-man encyclopedist ever.
Both epic and intimate, The Man Who Loved China tells the sweeping story of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself greatrelated by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.
[via]More editions of The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom:
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The Map That Changed the Worldby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060501812 (0-06-050181-2)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Map That Changed the World'Book summary:Once upon a time there lived a man who discovered the secrets of the earth. He traveled far and wide, learning about the world below the surface. After years of toil, he created a great map of the underworld and expected to live happily ever after. But did he? Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) tells the fossil-friendly fairy tale life of William Smith in The Map That Changed the World.
Born to humble parents, Smith was also a child of the Industrial Revolution (the year of his birth, 1769, also saw Josiah Wedgwood open his great factory, Etruria, Richard Arkwright create his first water-powered cotton-spinning frame, and James Watt receive the patent for the first condensing steam engine). While working as surveyor in a coal mine, Smith noticed the abrupt changes in the layers of rock as he was lowered into the depths. He came to understand that the different layers--in part as revealed by the fossils they contained--always appeared in the same order, no matter where they were found. He also realized that geology required a three-dimensional approach. Smith spent the next 20 some years traveling throughout Britain, observing the land, gathering data, and chattering away about his theories to those he met along the way, thus acquiring the nickname "Strata Smith." In 1815 he published his masterpiece: an 8.5- by 6-foot, hand-tinted map revealing "A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales."
Despite this triumph, Smith's road remained more rocky than smooth. Snubbed by the gentlemanly Geological Society, Smith complained that "the theory of geology is in the possession of one class of men, the practice in another." Indeed, some members of the society went further than mere ostracism--they stole Smith's work. These cartographic plagiarists produced their own map, remarkably similar to Smith's, in 1819. Meanwhile the chronically cash-strapped Smith had been forced to sell his prized fossil collection and was eventually consigned to debtor's prison.
In the end, the villains are foiled, our hero restored, and science triumphs. Winchester clearly relishes his happy ending, and his honey-tinged prose ("that most attractively lovable losterlike Paleozoic arthropod known as the trilobite") injects a lot of life into what seems, on the surface, a rather dry tale. Like Smith, however, Winchester delves into the strata beneath the surface and reveals a remarkable world. --Sunny Delaney [via]
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The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geologyby Simon WinchesterISBN 0006394221 (0-00-639422-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology'Book summary:Once upon a time there lived a man who discovered the secrets of the earth. He traveled far and wide, learning about the world below the surface. After years of toil, he created a great map of the underworld and expected to live happily ever after. But did he? Simon Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) tells the fossil-friendly fairy tale life of William Smith in The Map That Changed the World.
Born to humble parents, Smith was also a child of the Industrial Revolution (the year of his birth, 1769, also saw Josiah Wedgwood open his great factory, Etruria, Richard Arkwright create his first water-powered cotton-spinning frame, and James Watt receive the patent for the first condensing steam engine). While working as surveyor in a coal mine, Smith noticed the abrupt changes in the layers of rock as he was lowered into the depths. He came to understand that the different layers--in part as revealed by the fossils they contained--always appeared in the same order, no matter where they were found. He also realized that geology required a three-dimensional approach. Smith spent the next 20 some years traveling throughout Britain, observing the land, gathering data, and chattering away about his theories to those he met along the way, thus acquiring the nickname "Strata Smith." In 1815 he published his masterpiece: an 8.5- by 6-foot, hand-tinted map revealing "A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales."
Despite this triumph, Smith's road remained more rocky than smooth. Snubbed by the gentlemanly Geological Society, Smith complained that "the theory of geology is in the possession of one class of men, the practice in another." Indeed, some members of the society went further than mere ostracism--they stole Smith's work. These cartographic plagiarists produced their own map, remarkably similar to Smith's, in 1819. Meanwhile the chronically cash-strapped Smith had been forced to sell his prized fossil collection and was eventually consigned to debtor's prison.
In the end, the villains are foiled, our hero restored, and science triumphs. Winchester clearly relishes his happy ending, and his honey-tinged prose ("that most attractively lovable losterlike Paleozoic arthropod known as the trilobite") injects a lot of life into what seems, on the surface, a rather dry tale. Like Smith, however, Winchester delves into the strata beneath the surface and reveals a remarkable world. --Sunny Delaney [via]
More editions of The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology:
- The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology: ISBN 0060931809 (0-06-093180-9)
Softcover, Harpercollins - The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology: ISBN 0066209633 (0-06-620963-3)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers - The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology: ISBN 0060193611 (0-06-019361-1)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology: ISBN 0006394221 (0-00-639422-1)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited
- The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology: ISBN 0060931809 (0-06-093180-9)
Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empireby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060598611 (0-06-059861-1)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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The Pacificby Simon WinchesterISBN 0091734851 (0-09-173485-1)
Hardcover, Random House
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The Professor and the Madmanby Simon WinchesterISBN 0061030228 (0-06-103022-8)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionaryby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060839783 (0-06-083978-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Professor and the Madman: A Tale Of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary'Book summary:The compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, 70 years in the making, was an intellectually heroic feat with a twist worthy of the greatest mystery fiction: one of its most valuable contributors was a criminally insane American physician, locked up in an English asylum for murder. British stage actor Simon Jones leads us through this uncommon meeting of minds (the other belonging to self-educated dictionary editor James Murray) at full gallop. Ultimately, it's hard to say which is more remarkable: the facts of this amazingly well-researched story, or the sound of author Simon Winchester's erudite prose. Jones's reading smoothly transports listeners to the 19th century, reminding us why so many brilliant people obsessively set out to catalogue the English language. This unabridged version contains an interview between Winchester and John Simpson, editor of the Oxford dictionary. (Running time: 6.5 hours, 6 cassettes) --Lou Schuler [via]
More editions of Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary:
- Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 006099486X (0-06-099486-X)
Softcover, Harpercollins - Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 0060175966 (0-06-017596-6)
Hardcover, Harpercollins - The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 0060955392 (0-06-095539-2)
Softcover, HarperCollins Canada, Limited - The Professor and the Madman: A Tale Of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 0060839783 (0-06-083978-3)
Softcover, Harpercollins
- Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary: ISBN 006099486X (0-06-099486-X)
Their Noble Lordships: The Hereditary Peerage Todayby Simon WinchesterISBN 0060146893 (0-06-014689-3)
Hardcover, Harpercollins
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