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Product Identifiers

PublisherSimon & Schuster

ISBN-100671207148

ISBN-139780671207144

eBay Product ID (ePID)273728

Product Key Features

Edition2

Book TitleJohnstown Flood

Number of Pages304 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year1987

TopicUnited States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic (DC, De, Md, NJ, NY, Pa), United States / 19th Century, Civil / Flood Control

IllustratorYes

GenreTechnology & Engineering, History

AuthorDavid Mccullough

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.9 in

Item Weight13.5 Oz

Item Length9.2 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2004-274265

ReviewsBook WorldMcCullough has resurrected the flood for a generation that may know it in name only. He proves the subject is still fresh and spectacular., The New Yorker A first rate example of the documentary method....Mr. McCullough is a good writer and painstaking reporter and he has re-created that now almost mythic cataclysm...with the thoroughness the subject demands., Book World McCullough has resurrected the flood for a generation that may know it in name only. He proves the subject is still fresh and spectacular., The New YorkerA first rate example of the documentary method....Mr. McCullough is a good writer and painstaking reporter and he has re-created that now almost mythic cataclysm...with the thoroughness the subject demands.

Dewey Edition22

Dewey Decimal974.8/77

Table Of ContentContents List of Illustrations I The sky was red II Sailboats on the mountain III "There's a man came from the lake." IV Rush of the torrent V "Run for your lives!" VI message from Mr. Pitcairn VII In the valley of death VIII "No pen can describe" IX "Our misery is the work of man." List of Victims Bibliography Index

SynopsisAt the end of the last 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. 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. 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. 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 Floodis an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. 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., 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. 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. 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. 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 is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. 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.

LC Classification NumberF159.J7M16 1987