- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; First Edition edition (Jun 1 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0805072934
- ISBN-13: 978-0805072938
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.7 x 2.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 272 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #661,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In American history books, October 8, 1871, marks the massive fire that consumed Chicago. But as Gess (Good Deeds) and Lutz (Doublespeak) document in this thorough historical narrative, it was also the night a fledgling Wisconsin mining town endured a worse fate a story often overlooked in the annals of fire. Peshtigo, with a population of nearly 2,000, was obliterated in less than an hour that night by a freakish convergence of rampant forest fires and tornado-force winds. Gess and Lutz draw on a wealth of local sources, including diaries, interviews with survivors and newspaper accounts, to enliven their story and forge a cast of main characters. While the authors go into far too much detail in describing the town's founding and its politics, they render a chilling, absorbing account of the hellish events of the night itself, perhaps due to Gess's background as a novelist: " `Faster than it takes to write these words' is the phrase every survivor used. They used it to describe the speed of a fireball hitting a house and setting it into instant flames; they used it to describe the speed with which one house was lifted from its foundation, then thrown through the air `a hundred feet' before it detonated midflight and sent strips of flaming wood flying like shrapnel.... They used it to describe the sight of a small boy, separated from his family, and how he knelt to the ground, crouching in prayer before fire lit his body." The images of the catastrophe are often as unpleasant as they are vivid, but readers will sense that they are necessary and that Gess and Lutz have done an overdue service to those who suffered.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
The same day as the Great Chicago Fire, October 8, 1871, a huge conflagration swept through the lumber town of Peshtigo, WI, north of Green Bay on Lake Superior. A summer's drought, a windy day, and possibly a tornado combined to create a firestorm. The fire destroyed 2400 square miles of timber and farmland, demolishing several towns and killing some 2000 people. Peshtigo was remote, and earlier fires had destroyed telegraph lines, so although the scale of the disaster was considerably larger than Chicago's, the loss was relatively little known and quickly forgotten. Novelist Gess (Red Whiskey Blues) and Lutz (English, Rutgers Univ.; Doublespeak) gather information from letters, diaries, interviews, and local newspapers to tell the story of this disaster. In increasingly overheated language, they re-create the politics, the economic realities of a lumber town, and the special meteorological circumstances that combined to destroy an area larger than Rhode Island. Despite the somewhat turgid writing, this work is mildly recommended for libraries with subject collections in fire prevention, disaster recovery, and regional history. Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The working day began before dawn in the gloom in the forest surrounding Peshtigo. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The working day began before dawn in the gloom in the forest surrounding Peshtigo. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Should have been a longer book,
By
This review is from: Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History (Hardcover)
I expected a book about the firestorm and what happened during that tragedy to the people involved. Instead, I got a history of several wealthy men, some brief information about local inhabitants and a rather quick overview of the fire sweeping through the area. It's an interesting look at Wisconsin, the lumber industry and the slash and burn techniques used (Hey, aren't we yelling at people in South America for doing the same thing?) but I expected more than I got. I also realized when I finished that I still didn't understand very well what happened to create the firestorm. So I reread that section and I still don't understand. I wish they had done more research and written a longer book.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Reads like a novel,
By "booksinthecity" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History (Paperback)
I'm a Wisconsin Native, and reside in Chicago. The Chicago fire is very well known and publicized disaster, but the Peshtigo Fire's facts were somewhat of a mystery, thus my interest piqued regarding the subject matter. I really enjoyed the flow of the book, and felt as a non-fiction book, it read like a novel, as the story unfolded from beginning to post-disaster.The facts were written well into the victim's stories, and the reader gets to know the main characters involved; even though there exists vaguely documented information, I imagine due to the large loss of life itself. It intrigues me enough to read more pf the subject matter from the books the authors used as part of their research. I highly recommend the book. Well done.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Check the numbers and the facts,
By Still Cares "Not a Batt Chief" (Oregon United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History (Hardcover)
I very much agree with Robert R Baldwin and his evaluation of the 640 tree / acre snafu analysis. There are clearly numerous other errors that would most likely have been eliminated with a knowledgeable proofreading.Examples: Page 225; they mention that there are 640 SQUARE acres in a square mile of land. Page 109; "known as fall streaks or virga, are the graceful shafts of dry lightning preceding a storm." While virga, (rainfall) may be a sponsor of lightning (electricity), virga and lightning are two different elements of a T- Storm. Page 113; has a 1/2-sentence mention of humidity. The Index does not list humidity; I believe humidity is mentioned only minimally once or twice elsewhere. Failure to understand the extreme importance of humidity in wildland fire behavior is quite telling. Also page 113; Not recognizing that the "great round balls," "black balls" coming down from the clouds described by survivors in "Chicago, Peshtigo, Menekaune, and Williamsonville" are obviously thunderstorm downbursts. Which, by themselves offer the most reliable explanation of the fires extreme effects, especially in view of the apparent lack of any witness accounts of tornados coming down from the T-Cells. This obsession with a tornado scenario seems to have clouded the author's objectivity. Their are numerous instances of small towns listed throughout the narrative that are not shown on one of the three maps. While the reader can deduct their approximate locations, this is neither timely nor convenient. The authors are given to overstatement but fail to fully quote witnesses except for letters and telegrams. I was longing for the words of those that were there, not another analysis. Reader beware. The book does set the table well for the characters, and you do feel heartfelt sympathy for a few of the people that are allowed to come to life.
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