Customer Reviews

Agents of Chaos: Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Other Natural Disasters

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mr. Harris covers it all in this book. From earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods. One learns much about how much has happened here in the US, and what could happen next. Good coverage on the earthquake threat. The volcano information is pretty much the same from his earlier book "Fire Mountains Of The West." But new information on why there is so much lava in the Pacific Northwest may surprise you. Just as reading about the great floods that hit out west during the ice age. I like this book, and recommend it.

Steven Harris taken what might be thought of as pretty boring "science" stuff and written an exciting book about how unstable our stable, or at least what we percieve as stable, world can be. Students of geology might find some of this stuff "old hat" and Harris, rightly so, has targeted his book to the layman.

Focusing on the western United States, he presents a look at natural catastrophies from a geologic standpoint that have happened (focusing on recent geological past events) and how these events could (and eventually will) create chaos to us more recent earth residents. Many readers are probably familiar with the major earthquake danger in California; however, I venture that most are unaware of the types of volcanic dangers presented in this book (and you thought the only real dangers in Yellowstone National Park were bears and RVs).

My only complaints have to do with a lack of good editing. Drawing on such a large bibliography of peer-reviewed scientific literature, one wishes that Harris would have borrowed more of the rigorious editing that is a staple of the science. The chapters of the book read somewhat like individual articles with repetition of some facts (almost verbatum) in almost every chapter (no real "flow" from chapter to chapter). Ditto some of the illustrations. Several of the maps were presented without scales and captions on some illustrations were confusing. With a good re-edit my rating would be 4-stars.

I purchased this book for a child, at his insistence that it was the book he "must have." I certainly had my doubts. It doesn't seem to be directed at a younger audience.

However, this advanced reader devoured Agents of Chaos: Earthquakes, Valcanoes, and Other Natural Disasters. It does not seem to be something he's been drawn to over and over again, but it certainly gave him the information that he wanted, and it did contain enough in the way of illustrations to keep him reading.

I may not be majoring in geology, but I found this book to be an excellant read. I was suprised by some of the information that was presented in this book.