Mark Molesky’s richly readable new book “This Gulf of Fire” chronicles the catastrophic earthquake of 1755 that left Lisbon in ruins, killed almost 40,000 people in the city alone, and irrevocably altered the history of Portugal.
Economic chaos and a political power vacuum followed — from which a dictatorship arose.
Mark Molesky's richly readable This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason paints an astonishing picture of the natural cataclysm that struck Lisbon on Nov. 1, 1755. But it goes well beyond that, too.
Molesky examines the historical consequences the earthquake had for Portugal. He weighs its effect on European thought (his title is borrowed from Voltaire). He traces how it spread as a news event across Europe and the Atlantic. He also argues that European aid to Portugal constituted "the first international relief effort in world history."
Comment: Elsewhere in the US recently, more than 50 small earthquakes shook the Pacific northwest within a week, whilst over 600 earthquakes rattled San Ramon, California in the space of a month - setting a new record.