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Book Review
| The Orphan Tsunami of 1700: Japanese Clues to a Parent Earthquake in North America. Edited by Brian F. Atwater, et al. Reston, Va., and Seattle: United States Geological Survey in association with University of Washington Press, 2005. vii + 133 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, figures, references, index. Paper $24.95.
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| This is an unusual and fascinating book, a truly collaborative and interdisciplinary account of the tsunami that struck Japan on January 27-28, 1700, and the process by which scientists and historians linked the tsunami to an earthquake in Cascadia, the region west of the Cascades from southern British Columbia to northern California. Its central argument—that an earthquake with an approximate magnitude 9.0 occurred in the region in 1700—has made headlines and garnered the book's first author, Brian Atwater, a spot on Time Magazine's "100 most influential people of 2005." For most of the twentieth century, few believed that Cascadia could produce earthquakes of that magnitude: Atwater and his coauthors present evidence to the contrary, and their findings have had major implications for disaster planning in the region. |
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The book is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 outlines the threat posed by great earthquakes and tsunamis in Cascadia and discusses the evidence that scientists uncovered during the 1980s and 1990s that such events had struck the region in the past, including findings of "ghost forests" (dead trees in tidal marshes that indicated land subsidence), and inland sand deposits, some of which covered Native American campsites. Chapter 2 contains literary evidence of the tsunami that struck Japan in 1700, killing several people and causing significant damage in at least six towns and villages. The tsunami was an "orphan" because no earthquake appeared to precede the floodwaters; indeed only one commentator at the time invoked the word tsunami. The authors examine accounts from the six areas and estimate the extent of flooding in each. Chapter 3 links the tsunami to its "parent" earthquake in Cascadia. In addition to written sources in Japan, evidence for the timing of the earthquake came from analysis of the rings of red cedars in Cascadia, which indicated that the trees died between August 1699 and May 1700. The authors conclude by highlighting how officials and residents have begun to incorporate the possibility of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake in their plans for regional development and evacuation. |
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The book's format and layout is somewhat unusual—it resembles a museum exhibition catalog—but it presents information effectively. Each chapter has a number of subsections (one or two pages long) that address specific topics or pieces of evidence. These subsections have a few paragraphs summarizing major points, with more detailed explanations presented through sidebars, graphs, photographs, maps, and computer drawings and models. Such graphics are very helpful in explaining land subsidence, radiocarbon dating, and the other scientific matters to nonspecialists. The book also contains sections detailing a variety of topics related to Japanese society in 1700, including the social geography of towns, the role of samurai scribes, and calendars and time. The discussion of such issues is more methodological than analytical, and historians may be disappointed that the social context of the disaster is not discussed more fully. Regardless, this is an engaging and illuminating book, one that highlights the value of interdisciplinary work and that should appeal to a variety of readers. |
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Matthew Mulcahy teaches history at Loyola College in Maryland. He is the author of Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624-1783 (Baltimore, 2005). He currently is researching the 1692 Jamaican earthquake. |
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