Ghosts Of Vesuvius A New Look At The Last Days Of Pompeii How Towers Fall And Other Strange Connections Charles Pellegrino by Charles Pellegrino instant download after payment.

   The Victorian readers who once thrilled to Bulwer-Lytton's The Last Days of Pompeii would marvel at the secrets today's geologists and archaeologists are wresting from Vesuvius' long-cold cinders. With the same impetuous curiosity and vigorous style that he brought to his earlier investigations of the Titanic and Atlantis, Pellegrino probes Vesuvius' mysteries in an expository narrative of unmatched range and color. Weaving together accounts of ancient authorities with groundbreaking research by forensic archaeologists, Pellegrino captures the nightmarish final hours of Pompeii and Herculaneum, from the first ominous appearance of an "umbrella pine" eruption column above the mountain through the final lethal series of surge clouds and pyroclastic avalanches. But in the flash-fossilized remains of victims, Pellegrino sees powerful reminders of the abiding human hope to understand a brutal universe. Those hopes live still both in the science Pellegrino uses to interpret historic volcanic explosions as the distant consequence of the Big Bang and in the startling connections he makes between the two cities buried by Vesuvius in 79 CE and the Twin Towers destroyed by terrorists in 2001. These grim parallels between the deadly physics of volcanoes-- collapse columns, surge clouds, gravity bombs, shock cocoons--and the horrors of 9/11 are seen by Pellegrino as a valuable resource for these seeking life-saving strategies to deal with future calamities. A compelling fusion of pioneering science and poignant reflection (..from Booklist)