
San Francisco Is Burning
The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires
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Narrated by:
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Alan Sklar
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By:
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Dennis Smith
This watershed event in American history has never before been told with the richness of historical detail and insight that our foremost historian of fire, Dennis Smith, brings to it in San Francisco Is Burning. Smith cinematically recounts this terrible tragedy through the stories of the people who lived through those terrible days, from a valiant naval officer who helped save the city's piers and wharves to Eugene Schmitz, the crooked mayor, to the "debonair scoundrel" Abe Ruef, the most erudite city boss in American history. Throughout, Smith reveals many unknown details about the event, from the city's great vulnerability to fire, due to its corrupt and hasty building practices, to the widespread racism the quake unleashed and the atrocities committed by national guardsmen. Told with verve and a seasoned firefighter's knowledge, San Francisco Is Burning is the gripping and definitive account of one of the greatest disasters of the twentieth century.
©2005 Dennis Smith (P)2005 Tantor Media, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















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History of the fire!
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Needs to be made into a Hollwood movie!
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Story line
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fantastic story of chaos and heroes
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It uses these primary sources just fine. The author doesn’t take into account bias written into the accounts so he sounds pretty dumb at times for example believing everything police says despite the police essentially causing the spreading of the city’s fire and basically occupying the city and killing civilians for no reason.
The author also uses the writing style of saying ‘this person was thinking that today was scary’ which I hate. How does the author know how a person who lived over 110 years old felt? Also the author complains that the police didn’t get heroics despite describing their crimes of shooting random fleeing civilians and destroying the city while the police themselves also don’t credit any of their “heroics”.
The book ends with a long rant from a retired firefighter that you should just skip (does he ever shut up?) and a short profiles of what happened to the major players of the event. So the book kind of falls off after the fire gets put out.
A minute by minute account written by the gullible
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I found my blood boiling when learing of the arrogance & stupidity of the US Army and its' selective treatment of people (rich & white vs. poor & Asian). I also loved the general history of San Fran's neighborhoods & city founders and whenever I return to the Bay Area I now often think of this disaster as I walk the town.
My only complaint is the length. An Abridgment would've been nice as this does tend to ramble on at times when describing the various fire fighting methods over & over again.
Lessons from history
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A masterful narrative on prominent American history and spirit.
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Confusing
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