Earthquake Observers
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€92.99
A01=Deborah R. Coen
alexander von humboldt
austria
Author_Deborah R. Coen
california
Category=PDX
Category=RBC
chalres dickens
charles darwin
citizen science
confusion
conservation
danger
destruction
earthquakes
environment
environmentalism
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
ernst mach
fault lines
gender
geology
hazard
history
john muir
karl kraus
mark twain
memoir
natural disasters
nature
nonfiction
panic
physical sciences
preservation
richter scale
scientific research
scotland
seismology
stem
switzerland
tectonic plates
william james
women
Product details
- ISBN 9780226111810
- Weight: 624g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 10 Dec 2012
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Earthquakes have taught us much about our planet's hidden structure and the forces that have shaped it. This knowledge rests not only on the recordings of seismographs, but also on the observations of eyewitnesses to destruction. During the nineteenth century, a scientific description of an earthquake was built of stories - stories from as many people in as many situations as possible. Sometimes their stories told of fear and devastation, sometimes of wonder and excitement. In "The Earthquake Observers", Deborah R. Coen acquaints readers not only with the century's most eloquent seismic commentators, including Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Karl Kraus, Ernst Mach, John Muir, and William James, but also with countless other citizen-observers, many of whom were women. Coen explains how observing networks transformed an instant of panic and confusion into a field for scientific research, turning earthquakes into natural experiments at the nexus of the physical and human sciences.
Seismology abandoned this project of citizen science with the introduction of the Richter Scale in the 1930s, only to revive it in the twenty-first century in the face of new hazards and uncertainties. "The Earthquake Observers" tells the history of this interrupted dialogue between scientists and citizens about living with environmental risk.
Deborah R. Coen is assistant professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of Vienna in the Age of Uncertainty: Science, Liberalism, and Private Life, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
