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Wrath of God - The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 (Paperback)
Loot Price: R480
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Wrath of God - The Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 (Paperback)
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List price R535
Loot Price R480
Discovery Miles 4 800
You Save R55 (10%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Just after half past nine on the morning of Sunday 1 November 1755,
the end of the world came to the city of Lisbon. On a day that had
begun with blue skies and gentle warmth, Portugal's proud capital
was struck by a massive earthquake. After a brief, two-minute
tremor came six minutes of horror as Lisbon swayed 'like corn in
the wind before the avalanches of descending masonry hid the ruins
under a cloud of dust'. A third tremor shook most of the buildings
still standing to the ground, causing catastrophic loss of life.
Lisbon had been struck by a seismic disturbance estimated at 8.7 on
the Richter scale - more powerful than the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake. An hour later, riverine Lisbon and the Algarve coast
were engulfed by a series of tsunamis. In areas of the city
unaffected by the waves, fires raged for six days, completing the
destruction of Europe's fourth-largest city. By the time it was all
over, 60,000 souls had perished and 85% of Lisbon's buildings, plus
an unimaginable wealth of cultural treasures, had been destroyed by
quake, fire or water. The earthquake had a searing impact on the
European psyche. Theologians and philosophers were baffled by this
awesome manifestation of the anger of God. How could the presence
of such suffering in the world be reconciled with the existence of
a beneficent deity? For Portugal itself, despite an ambitious
programme of reconstruction (which gave birth to the modern science
of seismology), the quake ushered in a period of decline, in which
her seaborne supremacy was eclipsed by the inexorable rise of the
British Empire. Drawing on primary sources, Edward Paice paints a
vivid picture of a city and society changed for ever by a day of
terror. He describes in thrilling detail the quake itself and its
immediate aftermath, but he is interested just as much in its
political, economic and cultural consequences. Wrath of God is a
gripping account from a master writer of a natural disaster that
had a transformative impact on European society.
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