Yokohama Burning
Subtitle: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II
Publisher: Free Press
Published: August 29, 2006
Place of publication: New York; London
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780743264655
Subjects: Japan - History - 20th Century; Natural Disasters; History: World; Yokohama-shi; History; History - General History; Modern - 20th Century; Kanto Earthquake, Japan, 1923; Japan; Asia - Japan; Earthquakes & Volcanoes; History / Modern / 20th Century; Earthquakes; World - General; Asia - General
Description: The story of the worst natural disaster of the twentieth century: the earthquakes, fires, and tsunamis of September 1923 that destroyed Yokohama and most of Tokyo and killed 140,000 people during two days of horror. Piecing together a minute-by-minute account, journalist Hammer re-creates harrowing scenes of death, escape, and rescue. He also places the tumultuous events in the context of history and demonstrates how they set Japan on a path to even greater tragedy: the massive, American-led relief effort seemed to promise a bright new era in U.S.-Japanese relations, but, Hammer asserts, the calamity led in fact to a hardening of racist attitudes in both Japan and the United States, and drove Japan into the hands of radical militarists with imperial ambitions.--From publisher description.
Table of contents: title: Prologue : September 1, 1923; title: City of silk; title: The morning before; title: On the waterfront; title: The catfish and the keystone; title: Inferno; title: Tokyo burning; title: Rescue; title: Massacres; title: Spreading the news; title: Going home; title: Epilogue