Volcano: The Search for Vesuvius

by William Hoffer

Vesuvius "...has erupted scores of times in the last two millennia. Its most recent eruption came only a generation ago, in 1944, during World War II...VOLCANO...takes the reader through the dramatic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671400797
• ISBN13: 9780671400798
• Release Date: April 1982
• Publisher: Summit Books
• Length: 189 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Biased at times, but an overall enjoyable read

The overall read for William Hoffer's 1982 book, "Volcano: The Search for Vesuvius" was pretty fascinating. It took much courage for him to, literally, get inside the mouth of Mount Vesuvius to see exactly what's going on in there (which not many people throughout history have ventured to do). He gave a pretty good picture and history of the horrors that Vesuvius has unleashed on the metropolitan Naples area (and other parts of the world, by extension) since its catastrophic eruption of 79 C.E. that wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum (present-day Ercolano) and reportedly sent so much volcanic material into the stratosphere that it blocked out the sun in the rest of the *world* and lowered world temps by almost 2 degrees Fahrenheit. He also included the details of the only surviving account of what happened that horrific day from Pliny the Younger, nephew of Pliny the Elder, commander of the Roman Navy at the time of the eruption (and who would subsequently die as a result of the volcano's smoke that caused him to have a fatal asthma attack) to complete the picture. But there was an unreal bias that showed itself throughout the book when the author repeatedly stated that he couldn't believe why the people living in the immediate area of Vesuvius (known as the red zone) would continue to live in an area that faces daily danger from such a dangerous volcano (not the author's exact words). I always wonder why no one asks why the people who reside in the Midwestern U.S. continue to live in states that see constant tornado activity which constantly level or severely damage their homes on an almost yearly basis? Why doesn't anyone ask them why they stay in Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, or the like? The people who live in Naples choose to stay where they are because it's their home (and has been their family home for hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years). It's the same reason why folks in the Midwest stay where they are: It's their home and they choose to be there to deal with the good as well as the bad. I also didn't like the parts where he went into unrelated British history. No one would write about Italian history into a book about England, so why do it here? Besides those gripes, this book was a very enjoyable geology lesson and gave me a first-hand look and feel into the heart of one of the most deadliest volcanoes on Earth. - Donna Di Giacomo