Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66750 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-14
• Released on: 2006-11-14
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 372 pages

Amazon.com
Assiduous research, beautiful writing, and a great talent for historical reconstruction make Laura MacDonald's Curse of the Narrows the definitive account of the Halifax explosion of December 1917. MacDonald is a master of minutia--chemistry, laws of navigation, the horrors visited on the poor people of Halifax's north end--and she writes with supreme authority and exquisite detail.

MacDonald begins her account with geography and she sets the scene by examining the bustling port of Halifax in the First World War. Using the very best recent scholarship, she then reconstructs the accident itself, describing closely the series of small errors that lead the Norwegian freighter Imo to ram into the French munitions vessel Mont Blanc in the narrows of Halifax harbor: "The Mont Blanc, with 2,925 tons of explosives, packed in hermetically sealed holds inside a super-heated hull was now the most powerful bomb the war and the world had yet produced." When it exploded, thousands of innocent people were killed in an instant. If MacDonald had limited her investigation into the causes of the accident her book would still be worth buying. She offers much more: examinations of the inquiries and court cases, the official response to the devastation, and above all the ways in which families were challenged by the appalling effects of the explosion. By tracing the struggles of these families, the Duggans, the Frasers, and the Galloways among others, MacDonald brings the scope of the tragedy home to the reader in a way that few would have believed possible. Be warned. Parts of this book are book have an impact on the reader's soul no less than the concussion of the explosion itself. This is a magnificent accomplishment. --William Newbigging

From Publishers Weekly
In this recounting of the December 6, 1917, explosion that leveled much of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mac Donald gives a minutely detailed if not particularly lively rendition of what legend holds to be the most powerful manmade detonation before the testing of the atomic bomb in 1945. The unique natural characteristics of the city's harbor had long made it an ideal naval base of operations, and by 1917, Halifax had become a key transit point for war material bound from the ostensibly neutral United States to the beleaguered European allies. The merchant ship Mont Blanc, loaded with thousands of tons of TNT and the notoriously unstable explosive picric acid, was passing through the harbor's Narrows when it was struck by a Belgian relief vessel and exploded. More than 1,600 died, thousands more were injured and the blast wave collapsed buildings, in the words of a survivor, "like a grain field in harvest before a gust of wind." A television producer and Halifax native, Mac Donald draws out her narrative with excessive detail and flat prose, failing to bring her trove of first-person accounts to life. 40 b&w illus. not seen by PW. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
On December 6, 1917, two ships--the Mont Blanc and the Imo-- collided in the narrows of the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Mont Blanc, with 2,925 tons of explosives in barrels and kegs, caught on fire and set off a chain of events that destroyed much of the city. The 12,000 buildings within a 16-mile radius were damaged. More than 1,600 people were killed, 6,000 were injured, and many were blinded. The explosives created a slick black rain that fell across the city. The Imo spun across the harbor, crowded with ships bound for Europe, and ended up with its stern partially underwater. MacDonald, a native of Halifax, offers a minute-by-minute account of the disaster. She describes how many of the people miraculously survived, the extraordinary relief efforts, and the medical procedures in eye surgery and pediatrics. With 40 black-and-white illustrations, her book captures in vivid detail the history of this catastrophe. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Couldn't finish it
The subject of this book is very interesting, but the author went to great pains to turn what could have been a magazine article into a full length book. Lot's of detail about minor characters and tangential information, but the gigantic cast of characters is not presented is a compelling way that makes you want that much detail. I got about 3/4 of the way through, misplaced the book and didn't bother to look for it which is very rare for me -- in the last 10 years this is one of only two books I started and didn't feel compelled to finish. The story of the actual explosion is definitely worth a read but this book cries out for Readers Digest condensed book treatment.

big fun in little halifax
Gripping read, but a little bit of a slow start. You have to expect that with disaster books; they need time to set the scene of devastation. This is well written and well-researched, with a number of good pictures. Very informative, especially if you have even a passing association or knowledge of the city of Halifax. Also, a must for anyone with ties to Boston.

fascinating read
I had never heard of this disaster until recently. When I picked out this book I didn't have high hopes. The last few books like this weren't very good but this was fantastic. Laura MacDonald's writing is very detailed and personalized. You can really feel for the people and what it was like because this doesn't just spout statistics at you although they are included. Books like this work so much better when they are filled with the personalized stories like this is. Anyone would love this story and I wish they would make movies out of something like this instead of other books.