Noted volcanologist Scarth (Vulcan's Fury: Man Against the Volcano) has produced the definitive study of the horrendous 1902 eruption of Martinique's Mount Pelee, which annihilated the Caribbean island's capital. While the destruction has long been infamous—Saint Pierre, the capital, was leveled in less than two minutes—its tragic dimensions are fully explored for the first time by Scarth, whose analysis of archival research, eyewitness accounts and his own research show how the city's residents "could not have guessed their fate, for Mount Pelee threw a lethal type of eruption at them that scientists had never previously fully recognized or studied." Scarth's day-by-day and hour-by-hour account remains gripping from beginning to end. His prose ("Mount Pelee roared like a rampant lion throughout 7 May, punctuating its monotonous background noise with muffled cannonades that hurled huge blocks high into the air") skillfully contrasts the historical facts about Saint-Pierre, "the home of white supremacy," with its self-made image as "the Pearl of the West Indies," providing a much-needed sociological dimension to the natural tragedy. He also breaks out hardcore scientific data into engaging sidebars. By providing a wealth of archival photos from before and after the destruction, Scarth maintains the reader's interest without watering down his formidable knowledge of how volcanoes actually work. (June)
