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Literature & Fiction |
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Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
written by Erik Larson, Isaac Monroe Cline
Studio : G. K. Hall & Company
by G. K. Hall & Company
Publisher : G. K. Hall & Company
Released : 2001-01
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780783889337
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 260 reviews)
List Price : $28.95
Our Price : $11.69
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Product Description |
Read by the author
3 cassettes, approx. 5 hours
Now a New York Times bestseller, Isaac's Storm is the superb narrative of the extreme hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas, on a late summer day in 1900, leaving at least 8,000 people dead. On that day, a wall of water surged across the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into the burgeoning city of Galveston. The nameless hurricane remains the deadliest natural dissaster in American history, its final toll greater than the combined tolls of the Johnstown Flood and the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906-- yet the event has all but dissappeared from natural memory.
Isaac Cline, one of the first professional weathermen emplyed by the government, has gone on record as declaring that no storm could damage Galveston. Such fears, he wrote, were "an absurd delusion." By the time the hellish event was over, Cline would see whole portions of the city scraped clean of all structures and all life, and would himself endure an unbearable loss.
The other main character is the storm itself. Issac's Storm tracks the hurrican from its birth as a small plume of warm air over Africa, through its journey across the ocean as it drinks in vast amounts of energy, to its arrival at the unsuspecting city. The audiobook describes how the city, especially its children, welcomed the storm and the great deep-ocean swells that it cast upon their beach--until extraordinary things began to happen.
Isaac's Storm is based on our latest understanding of the physics and meteorology of hurricanes, on Cline's own formal reports and detailed personal account of the storm, as well as the recollections of scores of other witnesses. It is an unforgettable and timely story of the conflict between human hubris and the last great uncontrollable force--a cautionary tale for the millennium. |
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Americancivilwar.com Review |
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Reading in his signature dispassionate style, narrator Edward Herrmann brings an eerie calm to this powerful chronicle of the deadliest storm ever to hit the United States--a huge and terribly destructive hurricane that struck land near Galveston, Texas in September of 1900. Author Erik Larson re-creates the events leading up to the disaster in astonishing detail, tracing the thoughts and actions of Isaac Cline, a scientist with America's burgeoning U.S. Weather Bureau. Cline's unwavering confidence--"In an age of scientific certainty one could not allow one's judgment to be clouded..."--blinds the meteorologist to the deadly onslaught about to be unleashed. Herrmann's calculated performance reflects the impending doom and dangers inherent to an unquestioned and absolute faith in science. (Running time: 5 hours, 3 cassettes) --George Laney |
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Lacking in Style |
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The only give I gave two stars is because the storm itself is so interesting. The writing itself deserves one star. The style of the of the book is annoying. By writing short sentences and making assumtions that cannot be backed up with evidence, he tries to bring drama to a story that already has enough drama of it's own. This shoddy writing style makes me question his scholarship. |
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Exciting, detailed true story |
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Isaac's Storm is a wonderful book, well-researched and well-written. The attention to detail and accuracy is excellent. The scientific and historical detail on storms, hurricanes, and weather forecasting was fascinating. It was particularly interesting to get to know Isaac Cline. However, the story of the hurricane and the people of Galveston was the best part of the book, so exciting that I could hardly put the book down. I can whole-heartedly recommend the book. |
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Excellent |
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I totally enjoyed this book. I read it for a book club and didn't expect to like it so much. I spent a lot of my childhood in Galveston in the 1940's and there were people there at that time who had lived through the storm and still talked about it. It is very well researched and I found myself picturing exactly where things were happening and feeling a part of it. Next weekend I'm planning a nostalgic trip to Galveston to see what it looks like after hurricane Ike passed through. |
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I've always said the Weatherman prevails even when he's wrong{{ |
Erik Larson has documented an extraordinary narrative of an epic storm which killed over 6,000 people and wiped out the City of Galveston, Texas.
Here we find Isaac Cline employed as the resident U.S. Weather meteorologist failing to warn the residents of Galveston of an epic hurricane which was larger and more powerful than Hurricane Katrina which happened 105 years later.
It's rather incredible that hardly any warning was given. Isaac Cline was a good man. He just made a great mistake. This is a gripping true tale. Larsen wrote a great book. Five Stars!!
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a reminder of tragedy |
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Isaac's Storm, published in 1999, is the story of the most horrible hurricane in American history. While reading, I wondered if Hurricane Katrina had outstripped the Galveston hurricane described by Larson. It did not. The Galveston hurricane claimed at least 6,000 lives and the entire town. Hurricane Katrina, however, claimed less than 2,000 lives according to most estimates. While Katrina is the most tragic natural disaster of our age, our forebears experienced even worse. The Isaac of the title is Isaac Cline, the U.S. Weather Bureau's chief observer in Galveston. Larson weaves meteorological details of the storm with the story of Isaac and other Galveston residents as well as the bureaucratic failures that left the city vulnerable. The story is touching and, at times, horrifying. Larson clearly conveys the fear residents felt during the storm and the way it changed the lives of survivors forever. I cannot imagine living through such an ordeal. This is a wonderful precursor of Larson's later work, The Devil in the White City. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed that book. |
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