The Johnstown flood
A graphic account of the collapse of a poorly constructed dam and the resulting flood which killed 2,000 people and caused a nationwide scandal.
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Simon & Schuster,
1987
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| Edition: | 50th Anniversary edition. |
| Series: | Touchstone book.
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| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | A graphic account of the collapse of a poorly constructed dam and the resulting flood which killed 2,000 people and caused a nationwide scandal. At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal. Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing, classic portrait of life in nineteenth-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. It also offers a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are necessarily behaving responsibly. |
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| Physical Description: | 302 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-292) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0671207148 9780671207144 |
| Author Notes: | His first book, The Johnstown Flood, was published in 1968. His other books include 1776, Brave Companions, The Great Bridge, and The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. He received the Pulitzer Prize twice for Truman and John Adams and the National Book Award twice for The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal and Mornings on Horseback. He also won two Francis Parkman Prizes, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and New York Public Library's Literary Lion Award. Two of his books, Truman and John Adams, have been adapted into a television movie and mini-series, respectively, by HBO. In December 2006, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He also made the New York Times Best Seller List in 2015 with his book The Wright Brothers, and in 2017 with The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For. (Bowker Author Biography) |
