We see that javascript is disabled or not supported by your browser - javascript is needed for important actions on the site. Read more

What's New - Home - Login

Member $avings: $81,578,228.33 | Books Available: 794,172 | Members Online: 292

Swap Used Books - Buy New Books at Great Prices!

How To Swap Books Sign Up Search submenu

PBS Market (New Books)

Gift Buying Guide

Book Browser Advanced Search Books Posted Today Member Book Reviews Award Winning Books NYT Best Sellers Amazon Best Sellers Most Traveled Copies Club Wish List

Discussion Forums Book Lists

Club Lists My Book Lists My Watched Lists Create a List

Blog Donations

School Donation Program In Memory of... Military Donation Program Friends of PBS

Box-O-Books Maps The Eclectic Pen Fun Stuff

20 Questions Sudoku Bookmark Creator

Top 100

Requests Posts Swappers Referrers Reviewers

Pulse of PBS Spread The Word

Invite Friends Bookmarks Facebook Page Facebook App More Ways...

Photo Gallery Recipes Club Tag Cloud Member Testimonials

Help Center submenu

How To Swap Books Browse Help Docs Ask the Librarian PBS Member Icons Live Help

Kiosk

PBS Market (New Books) Go Shopping Buy Credits Buy PBS Money Upgrade Membership Gift Certificates Transfer Credits

Need Help?

Search - Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II

Yokohama Burning The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II
Author: Joshua Hammer

Yokohama Burning is the story of the worst natural disaster of the twentieth century: the earthquakes, fires, and tsunamis of September 1923 which destroyed Yokohama and most of Tokyo and killed 140,000 people during two days of horror. With cinematic vividness and from multiple perspectives, acclaimed Newsweek c... more »orrespondent Joshua Hammer re-creates harrowing scenes of death, escape, and rescue. He also places the tumultuous events in the context of history and demonstrates how they set Japan on a path to even greater tragedy.

At two minutes to noon on Saturday, September 1, 1923, life in the two cities was humming along at its usual pace. An international merchant fleet, an early harbinger of globalization, floated in Yokohama harbor and loaded tea and silk on the docks. More than three thousand rickshaws worked the streets of the port. Diplomats, sailors, spies, traders and other expatriates lunched at the Grand Hotel on Yokohama's Bund and prowled the dockside quarter known as Bloodtown. Eighteen miles north, in Tokyo, the young Prince Regent, Hirohito, was meeting in his palace with his advisers, and the noted American anthropologist Frederick Starr was hard at work in his hotel room on a book about Mount Fuji. Then, in a mighty shake of the earth, the world as they knew it ended.

When the temblor struck, poorly constructed buildings fell instantly, crushing to death thousands of people or pinning them in the wreckage. Minutes later, a great wall of water washed over coastal resort towns, inundating people without warning. Chemicals exploded, charcoal braziers overturned, neighborhoods of flimsy wooden houses went up in flames. With water mains broken, fire brigades could only look on helplessly as the inferno spread.

Joshua Hammer searched diaries, letters, and newspaper accounts and conducted interviews with nonagenarian survivors to piece together a minute-by-minute account of the catastrophe. But the author offers more than a disaster narrative. He details the emerging study of seismology, the nascent wireless communications network that alerted the world, and the massive, American-led relief effort that seemed to promise a bright new era in U.S.-Japanese relations.

Hammer shows that the calamity led in fact to a hardening of racist attitudes in both Japan and the United States, and drove Japan, then a fledgling democracy, into the hands of radical militarists with imperial ambitions. He argues persuasively that the forces that ripped through the archipelago on September 1, 1923, would reverberate, traumatically, for decades to come.

Yokohama Burning, a story of national tragedy and individual heroism, combines a dramatic narrative and historical perspective that will linger with the reader for a long time.

ISBN-13: 9780743264655
ISBN-10: 0743264657
Publication Date: 8/29/2006
Pages: 313
Rating:

Currently 4.8/5 Stars.

4.8 stars, based on 2 ratings

Publisher: Free Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Read All 1 Book Reviews of "Yokohama Burning The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Thomas F. (hardtack) - , reviewed Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II on 5/10/2023 + 2569 more book reviews

I felt the author did a very good job proving his theory of what this disaster led to. In addition, his inclusion of multiple personal stories made it even more interesting and an easy read.

Share/Like this Review?

Read All Book Reviews of "Yokohama Burning The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II"

Genres:

History >> Asia >> General
History >> Asia >> Japan
History >> World >> 20th Century
History >> World >> General
Science & Math >> Earth Sciences >> Earthquakes & Volcanoes
Science & Math >> Earth Sciences >> Natural Disasters

Back to the Top ↑

Search - Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Loading...