"Disaster" was a disappointment for me, mainly because I'd greatly enjoyed two of author Dan Krzman's previous books, "Fatal Voyage," and "Left to Die," about the U.S.S. Indianapolis and U.S.S. Juneau disasters, respectively. Those books, in addition to being informative history, tell great stories. Alas, "Disatser" makes a similar attempt in the storytelling department but fails. The book contains plenty of facts and first hand accounts of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, but it is strangely disjointed. There are so many stories of numerous survivors interwoven together that individually they are hard to follow. And since the book checks in at a fairly brief 256 pages of text, each snippet of each story usually gets only a couple of paragraphs before moving on. Together, the stories blend into a rather shapeless mass that all start to sound alike. Kurzman would have been better served to tell his story from the larger perspective and using individual stories where they fit in. This approach served David McCullough extremely well in his excellnt "The Johnstown Flood," which serves as the ideal model for this type of book.

Overall, if you are interested in the subject matter or are a disaster buff, this book should be worthwhile with the above caveats. If you are a casual reader, you may want to consider taking a pass on this one.

I was starting from scratch in my knowledge about the San Francisco earthquake when I began this book. What I especially enjoyed was the number of human interest stories regrading different people such as future baseball pitcher, but then a ten year old, Del Crespi, (not to be confused with Cardinals' infielder Frank "Creepy" Crespi), searching in vain for his beloved girl friend Lillian and singer Enrico Caruso looking forward to reading the newspapers' reviews of his singing performance shortly before the quake struck. Mansions and other temporal possessions of the wealthy were destroyed and many individuals resorted to looting. Explosives were used to create a gap wide enough where fires would not be able to "jump" over. Human nature demonstrates itself both for good and for evil during calamities and this was shown in numerous cases throughout the book. Ethnic groups such as the Chinese and whites both realized they were in this problem together, and the result was a strengthening of their shared cultures. I especially enjoyed the number of individual human nature stories provided by the author.

The format that Mr. Kurzman chose for this book works very well. The book is only about 250 pages long and is divided into 41 brief chapters. Mr. Kurzman darts back and forth, telling you about what is happening to various people that he has chosen to zero in on. For the most part, these are "just common people" but he also tells you about Enrico Caruso and John Barrymore, who happened to be in the city at the time of the earthquake and fire. Caruso and Barrymore actually provide some comic relief from the tragic events described throughout most of the book. Caruso was supposed to have gone to Naples to perform, but went to San Francisco with the Metropolitan Opera Company instead. He had heard frightening tales about the "wild west" and so he bought a gun, learned how to use it, and kept it concealed under his clothing- "just in case"! Mount Vesuvius erupted at this time and Caruso thanked his lucky stars that he had chosen to go to San Francisco instead....well, he thanked his lucky stars for awhile, anyway. Barrymore had signed on to make a theatrical tour of Australia. After he thought about it, he regretted this decision and even after the earthquake hit he spent most of his time hoping he'd miss the boat to Australia. But, again, the book mostly describes the destruction of property and the loss of lives that accompanied the earthquake and fire. The rapid cutting from chapter to chapter effectively recreates the confusion and panic that enveloped the city. Mr. Kurzman widens the scope of the book to include information about political corruption, which contributed to the devastation. For example, the chief of the fire department had been pushing for new equipment but the mayor wasn't interested in spending money on something that couldn't provide him with kickbacks. Additionally, construction contractors tried to cut corners by using substandard mortar, which increased the number of buildings that just disintegrated during the earthquake. Mr. Kurzman writes about the people who charged vastly inflated prices for food and transportation during the crisis, and he also reports on the members of the militia who looted and even murdered when they were supposed to be upholding the law. Desperate homeowners, who knew that insurance wouldn't cover damage caused by earthquakes, set fire to their own homes when they began to be fear that Mother Nature wouldn't do the job herself. One image that has remained with me is of the 3 story hotel that collapsed into a huge crack in the street. The bottom 2 stories wound up underground and many people drowned in the water pouring out of broken water mains. Only the people on the 3rd floor, now at street level, could crawl to safety. Despite advances in construction and fire prevention and containment, could anything nearly this bad ever happen again? Unfortunately, we may find out. Mr. Kurzman quotes geologists who estimate that a quake of this magnitude could be expected to occur in the SF Bay area approximately every 60-100 years. 2006 will be the 100th anniversary of the great fire and quake...

Twice in his career, Yitzhak Rabin was hailed as a great hero, first after the 1967 Six-Day War and again after his 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords with Arafat. Unfortunately, in each case the truth of his actual role and performance was more or less suppressed. In 1967, he suffered a collapse that rendered him basically non-functional during the war which was actually commanded by Ezer Weizman and Haim Bar-Lev (although there is no doubt he contributed much to the Israel Defense Forces preparations for the victorious campaign). In 1993, against his better judgment, the Oslo accords were forced upon him by his nemesises Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin and others. Rabin's assassination, which took place under very murky circumstances in which there is evidence that the state security forces may have had a role in setting it up, cast him in the martyr's role which, temporarily strengthened support for the agreements which were already being undermined by unremitting terrorist attacks and bestowed upon him a saint-like reputation which was at odds with the true record of his life. Today, in the midst of the large-scale terrorist war against Israel which began in September 2000, a more balanced appraisal of Rabin than which is presented in this book may become possible. Recently, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army revealed that Rabin told him shortly before his death that it was now apparent to him that the Oslo Agreements were a disaster for Israel, and that if he should be re-elected he would abrogate them but he didn't feel strong enough at the time to do it. Tragically, the wave of terrorist atrocities were destroying the man before his death and he began to speak irrationally even to the point where this man who had devoted his whole life to the security of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel was now saying that it was "not reasonable to expect the state to protect the lives of the individual citizens of that state". In his final appearance in a television news interview program three days before his death, he was speaking incoherently and he stated that his political opposition which was making strong, telling criticism of his failed policies (and, unlike what is stated in the book was leading by far in public opinion polls) was so "despicable" that it was even responsible for traffic accidents in the country! The next day, an aquaintance of mine who is a life-long supporter of Rabin's Labor Party said "a madman is leading this country". When reading this book, it must be kept in mind at all times the post-assassination atmosphere in which it was written. One hopes that a new biography will soon be written in which a more balanced view of this man who contributed much to the State of Israel but who ended up being destroyed both by his closet political colleagues and by the Arab leader with whom he signed the disastrous Oslo agreement.

This book is an excellent first step in understanding Yitzhak Rabin, but it is by no means the last. It gives a chronological, easily written account of his life, highlighting the tremendous accomplishments and breezily whizzing by some of his faults.

If you are looking for a factual account of his life, this is a good book to use. If you are writing a 10-page paper on Rabin's life, you need look no further. If you want to truly understand the psychology of this complicated man, or you would like a balanced portrayal of him, you will need to look beyond this.

In the introduction, it states that if he had lived, he would undoubtedly have been re-elected. The facts suggest otherwise; the Israeli people had had enough of him, and it was not until after his death that the nation began to recognize what it had lost, both in its leadership and in its innocence. This book seems a product of the years of the wistfulness that often follow the death of an important leader.

Audio version is great! Well written, well researched, and well read! Reads like Uris' Exudus, but true!