
Disaster!
A History of Earthquakes, Floods, Plagues, and Other Catastrophes
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Narrated by:
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Roger Clark
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By:
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John Withington
About this listen
A comprehensive catalog of the most devastating and deadly events-natural or man-made-in human history.
If you follow the news it can seem like injury, sickness, and death are now constant, inescapable occurrences that threaten us every second of every day. But such catastrophic events - as terrible and frightening as they are - have been happening for as long as mankind has walked the Earth.... and even before.
From ancient volcanoes and floods to epidemics of cholera and smallpox to Hitler's and Stalin's mass killings in the 20th century, humanity's continued existence has always seemed perilous. This volume offers a unique perspective on our modern fears by revealing how dangerous our world has always been-with examples such as:
- The Black Death that killed over 75 million people in the 1300s
- The 1883 volcanic eruption on Krakatoa
- The Irish Potato Famine
- The 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh
- And the long-ago volcano in Sumatra that may have wiped out as much as 99 percent of the world population.
With this catalog of calamity, listeners will be engrossed, enlightened, and relieved to realize that despite all the disasters that have befallen humanity, we are still here.
©2008 John Withington (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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1816 was a remarkable year - mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.
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Good audiobook to fall asleep to
- By Ellen NB on 02-24-20
By: William K. Klingaman, and others
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Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters
- Thirty-Nine Tiny Mistakes That Changed the World Forever
- By: Jared Knott
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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How often does a single tiny mistake cause an entire civilization to collapse? More often than you think! Listeners of Jared Knott’s book Tiny Blunders/Big Disasters will be amazed at the little things that changed history in a big way.
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Very, very interesting facts
- By dexter on 11-02-21
By: Jared Knott
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The Last Volcano
- A Man, a Romance, and the Quest to Understand Nature's Most Magnificent Fury
- By: John Dvorak
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Volcanoes have fascinated - and terrified - people for ages. They have destroyed cities and ended civilizations. In this book, John Dvorak, the acclaimed author of Earthquake Storms, looks into the early years of volcanology and its "father", Thomas Jaggar. Jaggar was the youngest of five scientists to investigate the explosion of Mount Pelee in Martinique, which leveled the entire city of St. Pierre and killed its entire population in two minutes.
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Solid recounting of a pivotal volcanologist
- By GeoMap55 on 01-06-23
By: John Dvorak
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Truth, Lies, and O-Rings
- Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
- By: Allan J. McDonald, James R. Hansen - contributor
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 26 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation's collective memory. In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center.
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Couldn’t finish...
- By J.Brock on 07-19-19
By: Allan J. McDonald, and others
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Ascent into Hell
- By: Fergus White
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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There is but one aim: the summit, the summit of Mount Everest. What starts with a trouble-free trek into the Nepalese highlands explodes into a gripping tale of hardship, peril, and adversity. Pushed beyond their physical and mental limits, climbers drop by the wayside. Their primal instincts for survival battle with their dogged resolve to drag themselves to the top of the world. But the focus remains: battle to the summit, and if successful, somehow get back down again.
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Chocolate Bars and Pee
- By Amazon Customer on 08-26-20
By: Fergus White
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The Death of the USS Thresher
- The Story Behind History's Deadliest Submarine Disaster
- By: Norman Polmar
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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When she first went to sea in April of 1961, the US nuclear submarine Thresher was the most advanced submarine at sea, built specifically to hunt and kill Soviet submarines. In The Death of the USS Thresher, renowned naval and intelligence consultant Norman Polmar recounts the dramatic circumstances surrounding her implosion, which killed all 129 men onboard in history's first loss of a nuclear submarine.
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I REMEMBER THESE HEROES
- By JustBill on 03-31-20
By: Norman Polmar
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Why Planes Crash
- An Accident Investigator's Fight for Safe Skies
- By: David Soucie, Ozzie Cheek
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Boarding an airplane strikes at least a small sense of fear into most people. Even though we all have heard that the odds of being struck by lightning are greater than the odds of perishing in a plane crash, it still doesn't feel that way. Airplane crashes might be rare, but they do happen, and they’re usually fatal. David Soucie insists that most of these deaths could be prevented. He’s worked as a pilot, a mechanic, an FAA inspector, and an aviation executive. He’s seen death up close and personal - deaths of colleagues and friends that might have been prevented if he had approved certain safety measures in the aircrafts they were handling.
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Me, Me, Me
- By WakeNCAgent on 09-13-19
By: David Soucie, and others
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A Million Years in a Day
- A Curious History of Everyday Life from the Stone Age to the Phone Age
- By: Greg Jenner
- Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Who invented beds? When did we start cleaning our teeth? How old are wine and beer? Which came first: the toilet seat or toilet paper? What was the first clock? Every day, from the moment our alarm clock wakes us in the morning until our head hits our pillow at night, we all take part in rituals that are millennia old. Structured around one ordinary day, A Million Years in a Day reveals the astonishing origins and development of the daily practices we take for granted.
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Super interesting!
- By Brandon on 07-07-16
By: Greg Jenner
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The Titanic: Disaster of the Century
- By: Wyn Craig Wade
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on the sensational evidence of the U.S. Senate hearings, eyewitness accounts, and the results of the 1985 Woods Hole expedition that photographed the ship, this electrifying account vividly re-creates the Titanic's last desperate hours afloat and fully addresses the questions that have continued to haunt the the world’s most famous marine disaster.
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The disaster and the disaster hearings
- By Tad Davis on 02-21-12
By: Wyn Craig Wade
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Occupied America
- British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution
- By: Donald F. Johnson
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Donald F. Johnson chronicles the everyday experience of ordinary people living under military occupation during the American Revolution. Focusing on day-to-day life in port cities held by the British Army, Johnson recounts how men and women from a variety of backgrounds navigated harsh conditions, mitigated threats to their families and livelihoods, took advantage of new opportunities, and balanced precariously between revolutionary and royal attempts to secure their allegiance.
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very solid given the lack of sources
- By wylie smith on 02-13-24
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Conquistadors of the Useless
- From the Alps to Annapurna
- By: Lionel Terray, David Roberts - foreword
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.
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Conquistadors of the Useless
- By Stephen on 05-23-21
By: Lionel Terray, and others
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A Commonwealth of Thieves
- The Improbable Birth of Australia
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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It was 1786 when Arthur Phillip, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy, was assigned the formidable task of organizing an expedition to Australia in order to establish a penal colony. With the authority of a renowned historian and the narrative grace of a brilliant novelist, Thomas Keneally offers an insider's perspective into the dramatic saga of the birth of a vibrant society in an unfamiliar land.
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Interesting tidbits, but slow overall
- By Dan on 08-23-07
By: Thomas Keneally
Good listen
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Ironically, this book cheers me up. If I think I'm having a bad day, I listen to this book. My bad days don't even compare to what people experienced based on these stories!
Love this stuff
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Fantastic account of disasters!
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I would recommend this book.
Interesting on a historical basis.
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After the third volcano, or the fifth earthquake, or the seventh flood, the stories start to swirl together in a dizzying array of grim statistics and debris. These may be important stories worth recording, but reading the details of a long list of them does not make for very captivating reading. I would definitely not recommend this book to anyone struggling with depression or negative thoughts.
You get the feeling that the Earth is not some garden paradise, but rather a pretty hostile planet that humans struggle to survive on. We are like ants on a soggy cracker floating perilously close to rocks being battered by crashing surf, or something.
I actually would recommend this book to anyone who is at all religious. This book might cure you, or at least get you to thinking deep thoughts about God and his "infinite mercy."
Well done but gets a little tedious
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Pretty Good
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the narrative
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1
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Just a list
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