Part roll call of cataclysms, part building engineering, this short guide is animated by a simple human concern: saving lives. As the best defense is an intelligently built structure, the authors describe (nontechnically) strategies for absorbing shock waves, trends in retrofitting, and the causes of particular failures. (Failure is a forte of these authors of Why Buildings Fall Down 1992.) In the narrative department, Levy and Salvadori examine famous instances of exploding volcanoes and devastating earthquakes, reliably giving the figures on casualties and Richter magnitudes and leavening the grimness with notes about why, for example, a Frank Lloyd Wright hotel withstood the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. Line drawings (but no photographs) visualize the scenes, and one practical section delivers Q & A's about survival tips for quaky areas of the United States. But what were the authors thinking of in adding a nongermane and simplistic chapter on cosmology? One blemish doesn't negate the whole intent, however, which is to bring the basics of tectonics to the curious. (Reviewed Sept. 15, 1995)

A nifty popularization of the hard science and history of volcanoes and earthquakes. Levy and Salvadori are structural engineers who admit that we still do not entirely understand `how earthquakes work,' '' and the ability to predict when they will occur still eludes us. But we canforecast quite accurately where they will happen and how powerful they might be.'' The understanding that an earthquake is the sudden slipping'' of tectonic plates goes back only 40 years, the authors note, and represents theresounding triumph of seismology.'' A prime objective of Levy and Salvadori is to demonstrate the interrelationship of volcanoes and earthquakes. They do so successfully by using several examples such as the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. It is believed that a series of earthquakes in 1990 triggered that eruption, which, though it claimed 900 lives, could have been far worse but for the attentive monitoring of seismographs, thermometers, and inclinometers spread throughout the islands. The authors recount numerous other quakes and eruptions, including that of Mount Saint Helens in 1980; Krakatau, an island off Sumatra that destroyed itself'' in 1883; and the ruin of the glorious city of Lisbon in 1755 fromthree great shock waves'' and the resulting tsunami and raging fires. The Lisbon disaster and the devastation of southern Italy in 1783 led, according to the authors, to the formal study of earthquakes, i.e., seismology. They also provide a look at what architects have learned from these occurrences and offer advice to individuals and homeowners on safety precautions and correct survival behavior during these powerful phenomena. A fun, sturdy book filled with helpful charts and dozens of illustrations."