A riveting history of how the cataclysmic Lisbon earthquake shook the religious and intellectual foundations of Enlightenment Europe.Along with the volcanic destruction of Pompeii and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Lisbon quake of 1755 is one of the most destructive natural disasters ever recorded. After being jolted by a massive quake, Lisbon was then pounded by a succession of tidal waves and finally reduced to ash by a fire that raged for five straight days. In The Last Day, Nicholas Shrady provides not only a vivid account of this horrific disaster but also a stimulating survey of the many shock waves it sent throughout Western civilization. When news of the quake spread, it inspired both a lurid fascination in the popular imagination of Europe and an intellectual debate about the natural world and God's place in human affairs. Voltaire, Alexander Pope, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among other eminent figures, took up the disaster as a sort of cause célèbre and a vehicle to express Enlightenment ideas. More practically, the Lisbon quake led to the first concerted effort at disaster control, modern urban planning, and the birth of seismology. The Last Day is popular history writing at its best and will appeal to readers of Simon Winchester's Krakatoa and A Crack in the Edge of the World.

Product Description: A riveting history of how the cataclysmic Lisbon earthquake shook the religious and intellectual foundations of Enlightenment Europe.Along with the volcanic destruction of Pompeii and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the Lisbon quake of 1755 is one of the most destructive natural disasters ever recorded...read more

An account of the cataclysmic mid-eighteenth-century earthquake also discusses how its related tidal waves, fires, and aftershocks rocked the western world, prompting intellectual debates about the natural world and God's place in human affairs as theorized by such Enlightenment figures as Voltaire, Alexander Pope, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 30,000 first printing.

A detailed chronicle of the famous architectural and cultural structure notes its century-long construction postponement after the erection of the first four stories in 1173; its survival of earthquakes, war, and tourism; the 1360 addition of its bell tower; and the contributions of such figures as Galileo, Machiavelli, and da Vinci. Reprint.

The author describes his pilgrimages to six holy sites of the world's major religions and discusses the spiritual, religious, and historical significance of his journeys to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, the tomb of Sufi mystic Rumi, the Ganges, Nepal, andother significant locales