Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and the subsequent destruction of the thriving Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum are historic disasters of monumental proportions, resonating across millennia and remembered to this very day. Now Dr. Charles Pellegrino takes us back to the final days of an extraordinary civilization to experience an earth-shattering catastrophe with remarkable and unsettling ties to the unthinkable disaster of September 11, 2001." "Through the modern wonders of forensic archaeology, facts about the everyday lives of the doomed citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum have been brought to light, revealing a society that enjoyed "modern" amenities such as central heating, sliding glass doors, penicillin, hot and cold running water - and a standard of living and life expectancy that would not be achieved again until the 1950s. But these thriving twin cities would be buried along with every hapless citizen in less than twenty-four hours when Vesuvius came frighteningly alive, sending a fearsome column of smoke and fire twenty miles into the sky." Employing volcano physics, Pellegrino shows that the Vesuvius eruption was one thousand times more powerful than the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, bringing to life the frightful majesty of that volcanic apocalypse. Yet Pellegrino digs deeper, exploring comparisons and connections to other catastrophic events throughout history, in particular the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. As one of the world's only experts on downblast and surge physics, Pellegrino was invited to Ground Zero to examine the site and compare it with devastation wreaked by Vesuvius, in the hope of saving lives during future volcanic eruptions. In doing so, he offers us a glimpse into the final moments of our own "American Vesuvius."
SYNOPSIS
Polyglot scientists and author Pellegrino continues his research into famous events of the past by applying forensic archaeology to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and subsequent destruction of the thriving Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. He puts it into historical and geological context, and finds common features with the fall of the World Trade Center. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A stunning and magical alchemy of science, philosophy, Bible study and brilliantly detailed on-the-scene reporting, Pellegrino's book moves effortlessly from the sweeping grandeur of infinite time and space to the briefest moment in the lives of ordinary men. In August A.D. 79, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and famously buried the city of Pompeii and, less famously, the city of Herculaneum. From this node of history, Pellegrino goes off on a sometimes cosmic search for the connections and ruptures that have shaped not only human civilization but the very course of life on Earth and the universe at large. Pellegrino includes easily understood nuggets of hard science, and his passion for his subject keeps the whole thing together. Rooted in the solid ground of rational investigation and intense research, the book never flies out of control but carries one along from point to point on a tour of Pellegrino's wide-screen thinking. The emotional heart of the book lies at ground zero in lower Manhattan, where Pellegrino and a small band of volcanologists put their skills to work making sense of the towers' collapse. As the column of white-hot volcanic ash descended on the ancient Roman cities nearly 2,000 years ago, so the 109 stories of the World Trade Center came crashing down, burying the dreams and aspirations of another civilization at the height of its power-or so says Pellegrino. This is a book to be savored, reread and passed along to future generations. Illus. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
This new book from Pellegrino (Unearthing Atlantis: An Archaeological Odyssey to the Fabled Lost Civilization) must fill a niche somewhere. Perhaps for readers who take Michael Crichton's novels too seriously? It's not that the text is full of falsehoods. On the contrary, it is so loaded with information that a reader wants to dip into it and come away with a clearly defined sequence of events that also make sense historically. But that is nearly impossible; the author really does make some strange connections, as the subtitle suggests. Relying on forensic archaeology, Pellegrino reconstructs the final days of Pompeii and Herculaneum and then goes on to tie the eruption of Mount Vesuvius to other catastrophic events in history, including 9/11. (An expert on downblast and surge physics, Pellegrino was able to survey Ground Zero.) Unfortunately, there is only a select bibliography, so the reader is often left at sea when trying to verify Pellegrino's claims. Readers interested in the far-reaching influences of such catastrophes as Vesuvius or 9/11 will be fascinated, but otherwise the breadth of the book precludes useful interpretation. Recommended with reservations for public libraries.-Clay Williams, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Jack-of-all-scientific-trades Pellegrino (Ghosts of the Titanic, 2000, etc.) takes a wide-ranging look at awesome phenomena associated with Earth's volcanic past and possible future. The Earth has a life of its own, he reminds us, humbling the reader with a record of major volcanic events powerful enough to obliterate discrete civilizations and entire species, even to redirect evolution itself. And it ain't over 'til it's over, Pellegrino asserts. His charting of key incidents shows Mount St. Helens releasing in 1980 energy equivalent to a ten-megaton nuclear blast, but that's nothing compared to his "standard unit" of an estimated 24,000 megatons, based on the 1628 b.c. explosion of the Island of Thera, a possible Atlantis in the Mediterranean. Records of ancient cultures from China to Byzantium chronicle the "years without summer," including mini-ice ages, which is often what resulted. The richness of preserved artifacts from the a.d. 79 destruction of the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum by Mount Vesuvius affords the author a romp through the eruption's grisly but poignant aftermath, dwelling on the "carbonized tongues" and "exploded teeth" of presumed victims. Less colorful but possibly more interesting are Pellegrino's summaries of the amazing depth of detail gleaned from the fossil record in relevant locales, effectively rendered via the format of a trip back in time. The author's vaulting digressions, however, are sometimes merely frustrating: introducing the notion of an infinitely "oscillating" series of identical universes, for example, he doesn't really explain why Red Sox fans would have to watch that ball go through Bill Buckner's legs time and again every 20 billionyears or so. And a discussion of the mechanics of the World Trade Towers' collapse in volcanologist's terms has the ring of afterthought. Nonetheless, an engrossing, challenging read. Agent: Russell Galen/Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency
Home
