Download The Last Day: Wrath, Ruin, and Reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 AudioBook Free
A riveting record of how the cataclysmic Lisbon earthquake shook the religious and intellectual foundations of Enlightenment Europe. Along with the volcanic destruction of Pompeii and the 1906 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA earthquake, the Lisbon quake of 1755 is one of the very most destructive natural disasters ever recorded. After being jolted by a massive quake, Lisbon was then pounded by the succession of tidal waves and finally reduced to ash by the fire that raged for five straight days. WITHIN THE LAST Day, Nicholas Shrady provides not just a vivid account of this horrific disaster but also a stimulating survey of the numerous shock waves it sent throughout Western civilization. When news of the quake spread, it inspired both a lurid fascination in the popular imagination of Europe and an intellectual debate about the natural world and God's devote human affairs. Voltaire, Alexander Pope, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among other eminent figures, took up the disaster as sort of cause célèbre and a car expressing Enlightenment ideas. More practically, the Lisbon quake resulted in the first concerted work at catastrophe control, modern urban planning, and the birth of seismology. THE VERY LAST Day is popular history writing at its best and will appeal to readers of Simon Winchester's Krakatoa and A Crack in the Edge of the World.
