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Rating: 
Summary: Good in almost all respects
Review: For the most part I would agree with what other reviewers have said here. This is an excellent book on the SF earthquake and fire in almost all respects. The photos and drawings are probably the best one can find anywhere and the work is well researched. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in the subject. The reason I gave the book four stars instead of five is that it is written very mechanically. The authors spend much of the book telling us about the fate of individual buildings and so fail to tell the story of the disaster fully. At times it reads like an engineering report on San Francisco buildings. But this is a small flaw that should not deter anyone from getting the book.
Rating:
Summary: Good in almost all respects
Review: For the most part I would agree with what other reviewers have said here. This is an excellent book on the SF earthquake and fire in almost all respects. The photos and drawings are probably the best one can find anywhere and the work is well researched. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in the subject. The reason I gave the book four stars instead of five is that it is written very mechanically. The authors spend much of the book telling us about the fate of individual buildings and so fail to tell the story of the disaster fully. At times it reads like an engineering report on San Francisco buildings. But this is a small flaw that should not deter anyone from getting the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Gladys Hansen; a pioneer of San Francisco history research.
Review: If you ever wanted a single book; graphic in all details & accounts of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906-you'll want our City Librarian's excellent reference. Beside that Gladys Hansen is to San Francisco history what Jack London was to Oakland's Library...makes this an "official" book! What makes this an outstanding work in my opinion a "required" book for all school classrooms, is that in addition to introducing who-knows-how-many individuals to the joy of historical research-she "knocked the socks off the establishment" when by her own authority-determined that the record was wrong concerning what a large impact this tragedy had had; and through common-sense investigations gave us a better picture of what really happened. I am recommending that teachers everywhere have "Denial of Disaster" on their reading lists as we celebrate this 150th Anniversary of California.
Rating:
Summary: A MONUMENTAL WORK
Review: Ten years ago, I discovered Denial of Disaster and was floored by what I read. This is the definitive historical work on the greatest natural disaster in U.S. History. The research by Gladys Hansen and her team, former Fire Chief Emmett Condon and the superb journalist David Fowler, forever destroys the official lies that have lasted nearly a century. The official death toll is 478: Gladys has proven that more than 3,500 died. The death toll is easily over 6,000. The photographs are superb, the text strong and inviting, the eyewitness accounts are breath taking. Yes, I may be biased: my novel, 1906, is a fictional account of the last, great days of the city of San Francisco as it once was. But my response to this book was immediate and dramatic, long before it inspired me to write my novel. Periodically, I revisit it like an old friend. There is nothing quite like it in the entire book world. It makes history come alive. James Dalessandro
Rating:
Summary: A MONUMENTAL WORK
Review: Ten years ago, I discovered Denial of Disaster and was floored by what I read. This is the definitive historical work on the greatest natural disaster in U.S. History. The research by Gladys Hansen and her team, former Fire Chief Emmett Condon and the superb journalist David Fowler, forever destroys the official lies that have lasted nearly a century. The official death toll is 478: Gladys has proven that more than 3,500 died. The death toll is easily over 6,000. The photographs are superb, the text strong and inviting, the eyewitness accounts are breath taking. Yes, I may be biased: my novel, 1906, is a fictional account of the last, great days of the city of San Francisco as it once was. But my response to this book was immediate and dramatic, long before it inspired me to write my novel. Periodically, I revisit it like an old friend. There is nothing quite like it in the entire book world. It makes history come alive. James Dalessandro
Rating:
Summary: Is the future in the past?
Review: This fine work incorporates not only a large number of historical and present day photographs but a thoughtful narrative as well. Excellent descriptions of the cowardice and heroism displayed during the earthquake and subsequent fire. Most importantly, the book examines the errors repeated during the rebuilding of San Francisco and the potential for danger in the next earthquake.
Rating:
Summary: Is the future in the past?
Review: This fine work incorporates not only a large number of historical and present day photographs but a thoughtful narrative as well. Excellent descriptions of the cowardice and heroism displayed during the earthquake and subsequent fire. Most importantly, the book examines the errors repeated during the rebuilding of San Francisco and the potential for danger in the next earthquake.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent historical photos of S.F.!
Review: This is a great book for anyone curious about the great quake of '06. There are a slew of books about the Earthquake available, but I would say this is one of the best photographic books on the subject. A picture tells a thousand words, and these photos tell a lot of what it was like, how things looked back then. Highly recommended reading.
Rating:
Summary: 1000 Stars
Review: This NOT just another of those earthquake books!
Everyone devoted to the serious study of earthquakes or the mitigation of their hazard--geophysicists, seismologists, civil and structural engineers, architects, disaster relief workers, fire personnel, police, building officials and so on, all must have this book for their professional libraries. Yet they might overlook it for years, as I did, and I'm in that group. We might pass it by because it is so brilliantly written and beautifully illustrated, but there aren't any graphs or partial differential equations or whatever.
Interestingly, it is published by Cameron and Co., whose "Over London" etc. books have those astounding aerial photos. Well, I thought the new photos in this book must be by Cameron, they're so good. No, they're by Richard Hansen, Gladys Hansen's son, who also researched the old photos, and is a top-notch professional photographer, obviously.
So this is a top quality coffee-table book. But it is much, much more. It's the result of Hansen's many years of meticulous research and awesome scholarship on the subject, still going on, tracking the growing number of casualties (currently over 4000). It is an expose' of disgusting corruption, of arson and military looting. It describes the shaking, maps the areas of bad ground, the route of the fires, describes the misery of the refugees, and, finally, almost when one can stand no more bad stuff, true gut-level heroism. All is told in restrained, elegant prose, somehow making the catastrophe more profound. It is also the testament of a great San Francisco Fire Chief, terse, professional, of quietly distressing implications and of immense value to planners. It is a treasure, a classic. BUY IT!
Rating:
Summary: 1000 Stars
Review: This NOT just another of those earthquake books!
Everyone devoted to the serious study of earthquakes or the mitigation of their hazard--geophysicists, seismologists, civil and structural engineers, architects, disaster relief workers, fire personnel, police, building officials and so on, all must have this book for their professional libraries. Yet they might overlook it for years, as I did, and I'm in that group. We might pass it by because it is so brilliantly written and beautifully illustrated, but there aren't any graphs or partial differential equations or whatever.
Interestingly, it is published by Cameron and Co., whose "Over London" etc. books have those astounding aerial photos. Well, I thought the new photos in this book must be by Cameron, they're so good. No, they're by Richard Hansen, Gladys Hansen's son, who also researched the old photos, and is a top-notch professional photographer, obviously.
So this is a top quality coffee-table book. But it is much, much more. It's the result of Hansen's many years of meticulous research and awesome scholarship on the subject, still going on, tracking the growing number of casualties (currently over 4000). It is an expose' of disgusting corruption, of arson and military looting. It describes the shaking, maps the areas of bad ground, the route of the fires, describes the misery of the refugees, and, finally, almost when one can stand no more bad stuff, true gut-level heroism. All is told in restrained, elegant prose, somehow making the catastrophe more profound. It is also the testament of a great San Francisco Fire Chief, terse, professional, of quietly distressing implications and of immense value to planners. It is a treasure, a classic. BUY IT!
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