In The Shadow Of The Volcano

Sections of Information on volcanoes are interspersed throughout this science fiction adventure. Discovering that a reawakened Mount Vesuvius is about to erupt, a modern volcanologist and her son warn a reluctant mayor to cancel a festival and evacuate villagers in time, in a story complemented by diary entries, recipes, and poems.

Issued also in French under title: Pompâei.

Popularist treatments of ancient disasters like volcanic eruptions have grossly overstated their capacity for death, destruction, and societal collapse. Contributors to this volume—from anthropology, archaeology, environmental studies, geology, and biology—show that human societies have been incredibly resilient and, in the long run, have often recovered remarkably well from wide scale disruption and significant mortality. They have often used eruptions as a trigger for environmental enrichment, cultural change, and adaptation. These historical studies are relevant to modern hazard management because they provide records for a far wider range of events and responses than have been recorded in written records, yet are often closely datable and trackable using standard archaeological and geological techniques. Contributors also show the importance of traditional knowledge systems in creating a cultural memory of dangerous locations and community responses to disaster. The global and temporal coverage of the research reported is impressive, comprising studies from North and Central America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific, and ranging in time from the Middle Palaeolithic to the modern day.

Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life--the Day of the Dead, 1938--his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical. Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.

Discovering that a reawakened Mount Vesuvius is about to erupt, a modern volcanologist and her son warn a reluctant mayor to cancel a festival and evacuate villagers in time, in a story complemented by diary entries, recipes, and poems.

“A wonderfully rich, witty, insightful, and wide-ranging portrait of the two Plinys and their world.”—Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live When Pliny the Elder perished at Stabiae during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, he left behind an enormous compendium of knowledge, his thirty-seven-volume Natural History, and a teenaged nephew who revered him as a father. Grieving his loss, Pliny the Younger inherited the Elder’s notebooks—filled with pearls of wisdom—and his legacy. At its heart, The Shadow of Vesuvius is a literary biography of the younger man, who would grow up to become a lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, and chronicler of the Roman Empire from the dire days of terror under Emperor Domitian to the gentler times of Emperor Trajan. A biography that will appeal to lovers of Mary Beard books, it is also a moving narrative about the profound influence of a father figure on his adopted son. Interweaving the younger Pliny’s Letters with extracts from the Elder’s Natural History, Daisy Dunn paints a vivid, compellingly readable portrait of two of antiquity’s greatest minds.

A world famous artist who loves volcanoes and even works in the side of one, hires Katherine to help write his memoirs. Their personalities clash but he persuades her to overlook his arrogance for the sake of their book. When the jealous mistress of his home is murdered, it soon seems Katherine will be next.