| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. By Philip L. Fradkin. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. xviii, 418 pp. $27.50, ISBN 0-520-23060-4.)
Many events are being planned, and there will be an outpouring of publications marking the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. We can hope all are as good as Philip L. Fradkin's The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. Fradkin, a journalist, has recently been writing about earthquakes, and this book completes his trilogy.	1
Historians will recognize much of the story from earlier accounts of the earthquake and fire and their social, economic, and political context. Early on April 18, 1906, the San Andreas fault shook with a ferocious earthquake, likely a 7.8 on the modern Richter scale. Serious damage occurred from 90 miles southeast of San Francisco to 170 miles northwest. The epicenter was just offshore from the southwest corner of San Francisco, then one of the ten largest cities in the nation. Seriously damaged by the earthquake, the city was then devastated by three days of firestorms. Rebuilding came quickly, and San Francisco was reassembled much as it had been before. Concurrently, the city was in the midst of an investigation of its Union Labor party administration, resulting in a highly publicized graft prosecution.	. . .

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