[UCP Books]: The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes
Deborah R. Coen, author of The Earthquake Observers
Conevery Bolton Valencius
|Publication date: October 15, 2013||Cloth $35.00/₤24.50|
|International publication date: October 28, 2013||978-0-226-05389-9|
In The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes, Conevery Bolton Valencius remembers this major environmental disaster, demonstrating how events that have been long forgotten, and even denied or ridiculed as tall tales, were in fact enormously important at the time of their occurrence and continue to shape contemporary seismology and disaster planning. Valencius weaves together scientific and historical evidence to demonstrate the vast role the New Madrid earthquakes played in the United States in the early nineteenth century, shaping the settlement patterns of early western Cherokees and other Native Americans, heightening the credibility of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa for their Indian league in the War of 1812, giving force to frontier religious revival, and spreading scientific inquiry. Moving into the present, Valencius explores the recent resurgence of New Madrid earthquake science and investigates the intertwined reasons—environmental, scientific, social, and economic—why something as consequential as major earthquakes can be lost from public knowledge, offering a cautionary tale in a world struggling to respond to global climate change amid widespread willful denial.
Please contact Micah Fehrenbacher at (773) 702-7717 or firstname.lastname@example.org for more information.