The Johnstown Flood

The Johnstown Flood by
List Price :
Price Save : $20.95 (as of 2012-10-10 - Details)
SalesRank :
Warranty:
LowestNewPrice:
LowestUsedPrice:

Buy from amazon.com
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Posted date: 2012-10-10


Graced by David McCullough's remarkable gift for writing richly textured, sympathetic social history, The Johnstown Flood is an absorbing portrait of life in 19th-century America, of overweening confidence, of energy, and of tragedy. This is a powerful historical lesson for our century and all times: the danger of assuming that because people are in positions of responsibility they are behaving responsibly.

At the end of the last century, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a booming coal-and-steel town filled with hardworking families striving for a piece of the nation's burgeoning industrial prosperity. In the mountains above Johnstown, an old earth dam had been hastily rebuilt to create a lake for an exclusive summer resort patronized by the tycoons of that same industrial prosperity, among them Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon. Despite repeated warnings of possible danger, nothing was done about the dam. Then came May 31, 1889, when the dam burst, sending a wall of water thundering down the mountain, smashing through Johnstown, and killing more than 2,000 people. It was a tragedy that became a national scandal. Read more The Johnstown Flood

The Johnstown Flood Feature

Buy The Johnstown Flood Now