Ghosts of Vesuvius : a new look at the last days of Pompeii, how towers fall, and other strange connections /

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. --Bryce Christensen Copyright 2004 Booklist

A stunning and magical alchemy of science, philosophy, Bible study and brilliantly detailed on-the-scene reporting, Pellegrino's book moves effortlessly from the sweeping grandeur of infinite time and space to the briefest moment in the lives of ordinary men. In August A.D. 79, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and famously buried the city of Pompeii and, less famously, the city of Herculaneum. From this node of history, Pellegrino goes off on a sometimes cosmic search for the connections and ruptures that have shaped not only human civilization but the very course of life on Earth and the universe at large. Pellegrino includes easily understood nuggets of hard science, and his passion for his subject keeps the whole thing together. Rooted in the solid ground of rational investigation and intense research, the book never flies out of control but carries one along from point to point on a tour of Pellegrino's wide-screen thinking. The emotional heart of the book lies at ground zero in lower Manhattan, where Pellegrino and a small band of volcanologists put their skills to work making sense of the towers' collapse. As the column of white-hot volcanic ash descended on the ancient Roman cities nearly 2,000 years ago, so the 109 stories of the World Trade Center came crashing down, burying the dreams and aspirations of another civilization at the height of its power-or so says Pellegrino. This is a book to be savored, reread and passed along to future generations. Illus. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

This new book from Pellegrino (Unearthing Atlantis: An Archaeological Odyssey to the Fabled Lost Civilization) must fill a niche somewhere. Perhaps for readers who take Michael Crichton's novels too seriously? It's not that the text is full of falsehoods. On the contrary, it is so loaded with information that a reader wants to dip into it and come away with a clearly defined sequence of events that also make sense historically. But that is nearly impossible; the author really does make some strange connections, as the subtitle suggests. Relying on forensic archaeology, Pellegrino reconstructs the final days of Pompeii and Herculaneum and then goes on to tie the eruption of Mount Vesuvius to other catastrophic events in history, including 9/11. (An expert on downblast and surge physics, Pellegrino was able to survey Ground Zero.) Unfortunately, there is only a select bibliography, so the reader is often left at sea when trying to verify Pellegrino's claims. Readers interested in the far-reaching influences of such catastrophes as Vesuvius or 9/11 will be fascinated, but otherwise the breadth of the book precludes useful interpretation. Recommended with reservations for public libraries.-Clay Williams, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Jack-of-all-scientific-trades Pellegrino (Ghosts of the Titanic, 2000, etc.) takes a wide-ranging look at awesome phenomena associated with Earth's volcanic past and possible future. The Earth has a life of its own, he reminds us, humbling the reader with a record of major volcanic events powerful enough to obliterate discrete civilizations and entire species, even to redirect evolution itself. And it ain't over 'til it's over, Pellegrino asserts. His charting of key incidents shows Mount St. Helens releasing in 1980 energy equivalent to a ten-megaton nuclear blast, but that's nothing compared to his "standard unit" of an estimated 24,000 megatons, based on the 1628 b.c. explosion of the Island of Thera, a possible Atlantis in the Mediterranean. Records of ancient cultures from China to Byzantium chronicle the "years without summer," including mini-ice ages, which is often what resulted. The richness of preserved artifacts from the a.d. 79 destruction of the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum by Mount Vesuvius affords the author a romp through the eruption's grisly but poignant aftermath, dwelling on the "carbonized tongues" and "exploded teeth" of presumed victims. Less colorful but possibly more interesting are Pellegrino's summaries of the amazing depth of detail gleaned from the fossil record in relevant locales, effectively rendered via the format of a trip back in time. The author's vaulting digressions, however, are sometimes merely frustrating: introducing the notion of an infinitely "oscillating" series of identical universes, for example, he doesn't really explain why Red Sox fans would have to watch that ball go through Bill Buckner's legs time and again every 20 billion years or so. And a discussion of the mechanics of the World Trade Towers' collapse in volcanologist's terms has the ring of afterthought. Nonetheless, an engrossing, challenging read. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.