The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906

“Fradkin is an impassioned writer who knows his subject. . . . He writes that he sees his book not just as a history but also as ‘a disaster manual for the future.’ I respectfully beg to differ. Rather than a manual for the future -- of which there is no shortage -- Fradkin has given us something much more valuable: a clear-eyed view of our past.”

— San Francisco Chronicle

“Fradkin writes beautifully, in a spare, no-nonsense style.”

— Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

“In this richly detailed retelling of the event, Philip Fradkin places that event within the cultural framework of the era, providing evocative descriptions of its immediate impact and the long-running effects it triggered. Whether already well-informed or merely curious, readers will find much new information as well as helpful perspective.”

— Bloomsbury Review

“In this well-researched book, Fradkin contends that it was the people of San Francisco, not the forces of nature, who were responsible for the extent of the destruction and death. . . . In fascinating detail, Fradkin tells the story of the quake and reconstruction that followed, and he goes on to analyze more recent history, concluding that San Francisco is in nearly as much danger now as it was a century ago. Some may find harsh his insistence on blaming people, not nature, for natural disasters; but he defends his position forcefully.”

— Booklist

“Indeed, for all its horrific incident, ‘The Great Earthquake’ proves an inspiring, even endearing book, full of colorful anecdotes and charming details, encyclopedic in scope and powerfully evocative of San Francisco in its golden age. The panorama Fradkin offers the reader is so sweeping and so vivid that one might be tempted to call his book cinematic, were it not for the fact that all those disaster movies seem so bland by comparison.”

— Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Meticulously researched in local archives, [Fradkin’s] book's aim is to tell the story of what happened from the viewpoint of the people who lived through it. . . His account of what happened above ground is first-rate.”

— Times Higher Ed Supplement (Thes)

“Provides a richly textured, informative, compelling account of agonies that deserve to be recalled.”

— Times Literary Supplement (TLS)

“The city ignored its uneasy history, and civic and military officials brought on much of the chaos and many of the deaths, the author argues.”

— Sunday Times

“The definitive work on the events of 1906 and their aftermath, a must-read to understand what actually happened, what it meant for the men and women who lived there, how it reverberates through California history and the lessons for our times, including the tragic events of Hurricane Katrina.”

— Los Angeles Times Book Review

“This briskly and vividly written work, exhaustively researched in archival, manuscript, periodical, and personal sources, is a definitive triumph of scholarship.”

— Choice

“This well-researched, highly readable account, supported by copious eyewitness reports, many of them previously unpublished, puts the reader in the rolling streets and among the toppling buildings as the tremors rip the city apart. One can almost feel the heat and smell the acrid smoke of the resulting conflagration.”

— American History

Indeed, his current study of the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake derives its central strength from Fradkin's depiction of the social and political causes and results of this cataclysm. As bad as the earthquake was a geological fact, Fradkin argues, it was even more catastrophic in the social and political behavior that followed: behavior that had its dynamics in the very DNA code of San Francisco in that era. Just as Katrina revealed the underlying dichotomies and dissonances of New Orleans, so too did the earthquake of April 1906 disclose and exacerbate the social fault lines of San Francisco.

— California History