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The Last Day: Wrath, Ruin, and Reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755

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The earthquake that hit Lisbon on 1 November 1755 shook up a lot more than its buildings and citizens. There were repercussions for science, religion, philosophy, politics, and literature. In _The Last Day: Wrath, Ruin, and Reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755_ (Viking) Nicholas Shrady gives a compelling short account of the disaster itself, and the history of the events leading up to it, but spends far more of the pages in a fascinating description of the effects of the quake in local and global history. There have been bigger disasters, even in our own times, but this one was not only big, but it made gigantic differences even in the way humans looked at their place in the world. Shrady says that because of this particular disaster in a particular place, all people all over the world "from staunch clerics to enlightened philosophers were compelled to re-examine their most cherished dogmas." We are still living with some of the changes the earthquake wrought.

José I may have been king, but Portugal was largely ruled by the church which was the largest landowner and which supported the justly-feared Holy Office of the Inquisition. Every traveler noted how pious the inhabitants were, but many of them were in church when the disaster began, first with tremors, then violent waves from the sea, then from fire from all the household fireplaces that were beneath the collapsed buildings. Ten percent of the populace was wiped out. As in all disasters or diseases, there were those who knew that God was sending a message to those afflicted. The message, however, did not make sense. Lisbon was no worse than any large city, and demonstrably more pious than the others. The flawed hero of this book, the Portuguese Secretary of State, Sebastião Carvalho, realized that blaming people's sinfulness for the disaster would only undercut his efforts to bring them together to surmount it. The changes in thinking were not just religious, but more broadly philosophical. The most famous changes came in Voltaire's reaction to the ideas of Leibnitz, who reasoned that if the world was the product of a benevolent and all-powerful God, then it must be the best of all possible worlds, no matter how hard it is for us to see the goodness. In 1759, Voltaire published _Candide_, a rollicking, bawdy, fast-moving tale of inexplicable ups-and-downs, including the main characters' presence in the Lisbon earthquake. The book made fun not only of Leibnitz's philosophy, but of the Church, the Inquisition, the nobility, the military, and more. It isn't surprising that governments tried to suppress it, and also not surprising that it became a bestseller. There was no sense in trying to figure out how the world is the best possible one, the book shows; we must simply get on with the duties of our lives. It was a stylistic death-blow to deistic optimism.

It also was part of a new mood of skepticism that encouraged scientific explanations of catastrophes rather than religious explanations. Carvalho arranged for a survey to be widely distributed, to document how people perceived the earthquake and its effects, answering questions like "Did you perceive the shock to be greater from one direction than another?" or "Did the sea rise or fall first?" The undulating waves of the ground reported by many who survived may have triggered the first ideas that earthquakes spread as waves; the first theories of wave motion within the Earth were put forward by English physicist John Mitchell in 1760. The Lisbon earthquake, then, was the beginning of seismology. A new city was designed from scratch, on an enlightened rational grid that became a model for the future rebuilding of Paris. Military engineers constructed the first buildings in Europe designed to withstand earthquakes. Shrady writes that the "disaster would also usher in a new era, one in which a wholesome sense of doubt and the powers of reason would replace the certainties of religious dogma, and the numbing resignation that providence instilled would give way to the liberation of human promise." But he also reminds us that the new era is not completely arrived, for there will always be those that take sanctimonious satisfaction in the punishment God deals out to others. The retired archbishop of New Orleans, for instance, insisted that hurricane Katrina was deserved chastisement for sexual attitudes, abortions, and drug addiction. Lisbon's lessons are not yet universal.

Because work often brings me to Lisbon,I thought it would be good to learn a bit more about the towns history and this book was a thrill - informative,interesting and easy to read without too many technical details,it gives clear picture of Lisbon the way it was before that fateful day in 1755. when earthquake,tsunamis and fire literally destroyed the town and how it was subsequently rebuilt again with heroic efforts by certain Mr.Carvalho who was given full freedom by king of Portugal,way too scared to act himself.
Sure,along the way Carvalho made many enemies and stepped on people's feet too often but you have to consider immense opposition from the church and aristocracy who opposed anything new,while he had to rebuilt city from the rumble of stones and along the way managed to get rid of Jesuits who brainwashed citizens into thinking that this was God's punishment and there is no sense in building anything new. Eventually King died and his successor was religious fanatic who punished Carvahlo and restored church but although Carvahlo died in exile,his work is remembered and when we walk through marble streets of Lisbon centre,we appreciate this - there simply wouldn't be any Lisbon the way it is today if not for him.
Nicholas Shrady writes very well and connects our reactions to natural catastrophes than and now - he also points that way back than as well as today,God's punishment is still used as explanation to these catastrophes. Listening to words of Archbishop of New Orleans ("We have reached a depth of immorality that we have never reached before") after recent devastations of hurricanes in that area,you would think we are still in old Lisbon and Jesuits are preaching their thundering sermons.
Somewhere in there there is also a short and interesting history of Lisbon itself,which gives you very good picture of the place it was before the disaster,how it depended on colonies in Brazil (and why this wealth never actually helped the country but was spent elsewhere) and what happened since.
The book starts at ends with same day,November 01, (the day of earthquake) clearly making a point in comparing the town than and now.

This is a fast-paced, enjoyable read. The reader learns a great deal, not only about the Lisbon earthquake but about Iberian history in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, and about the European world in the 1700s. For the historian or student of history, however, it is also frustrating because Shrady only cites (endnotes) his sources where he has a quotation. For the rest, the reader has no way of knowing how Schrady arrived at his descriptions, interpretations, or conclusions. This is unfortunate, but probably not Shrady's fault: Penguin, publishing a book for the masses, no doubt forced him to strip his manuscript of his citations, for fear of frightening general readers with a large number of endnotes or footnotes. Someday, perhaps, books like this will come with an access code for an online "author's cut" edition!

If you are looking for the kind of 'you are there' description of the earthquake and the fire and tsunamis that followed, you will not really find that here.

However, this still is a very readable and interesting book, linking the Lisbon earthquake to a host of interrelated topics including: how this disaster was truly the first national disaster with an international charitable relief response, how awareness of this disaster challenged current religious and philosophical views (and led Voltaire to write his greatest work criticizing then popular "Optimism") and how the history of the Iberian lands led to the politics surrounding the rebuilding of Lisbon. The backdrop of Portugese history alone is worth the read.