Sunday, November 04, 2007

Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections by Charles Pellegrino

Ghosts of Vesuvius: A New Look at the Last Days of Pompeii, How Towers Fall, and Other Strange Connections by Charles Pellegrino is a disjointed rambling mess. This is supposedly a discussion of volcanoes and their effects on history. There's a description of Pompeii particularly the archaeology. Apparently because the World Trade Center collapse was much like a volcano it to is mentioned. In the intervening 400 pages there is a rambling discussion of the last 8 billion years of natural history, apocalyptic Christian literature, the Titanic and various other things.

It doesn't help that a lot of what he says is complete nonsense. The Byzantine Empire fell in the 6th century AD, 1st century AD Rome was on the brink of the Industrial Revolution. This makes me wonder whether the science sections were nonsense to.

Not recommended!

Is available through Abebooks.

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