The Longest Minute: The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906

By Matthew J. Davenport

Book Overview

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

Matthew J. Davenport's The Longest Minute is the spellbinding true story of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco, and how a great earthquake sparked a devastating and preventable firestorm.

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck San Francisco, catching most of the city asleep. For approximately one minute, shockwaves buckled streets, shattered water mains, collapsed buildings, crushed hundreds of residents to death and trapped many alive. Fires ignited and blazed through dry wooden ruins and grew into a firestorm. For the next three days, flames devoured collapsed ruins, killed trapped survivors, and nearly destroyed what was then the largest city in the American West.

Meticulously researched and gracefully written, The Longest Minute is both a harrowing chronicle of devastation and the portrait of a city's resilience in the burning aftermath of greed and folly. Drawing on the letters and diaries and unpublished memoirs of survivors and previously unearthed archival records, Matthew Davenport combines history and science to tell the dramatic true story of one of the greatest disasters in American history.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250279275
• ISBN13: 9781250279279
• Release Date: October 2023
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.2" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Heir apparent to David McCullough

Matthew J. Davenport writes history the way history should be written, by telling the stories of the people who experienced the event - in the mold of David McCullough. He is a gifted researcher and writer. Both of his books are superb, and I hope to enjoy many more in the future.