Vesuvius

By Gillian Darley

Volcanoes around the world have their own legends, and many have wrought terrible devastation, but none has caught the imagination like Vesuvius. We now know that immense eruptions destroyed Bronze Age settlements around Vesuvius, but the Romans knew nothing of those disasters and were lulled into complacency—much as we are today—by its long period of inactivity. None of the nearly thirty eruptions since AD 79 has matched the infamous cataclysm that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum within hours. Nearly two thousand years later, the allure of the volcano remains—as evidenced by its popularity as a tourist attraction, from Shelley and the Romantics to modern-day visitors.

Vesuvius has loomed large throughout history, both feared and celebrated. Gillian Darley unveils the human responses to Vesuvius from a cast of characters as far-flung as Pliny the Younger and Andy Warhol, revealing shifts over time. This cultural and scientific meditation on a powerful natural wonder touches on pagan religious beliefs, vulcanology, and travel writing. Sifting through the ashes of Vesuvius, Darley exposes how changes in our relationship to the volcano mirror changes in our understanding of our cultural and natural environments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Release date: Feb 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780674062801

Gillian Darley

Gillian Darley writes widely in the arts media, mostly about architecture and landscape. She is president of the Twentieth Century Society and has written acclaimed biographies of Octavia Hill, John Evelyn and John Soane - the latter two shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. Her most recent book is Ian Nairn: Words in Place (Five Leaves Publications, with David McKie). She lives in London.

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Reviews for Vesuvius

[kateashenden · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a delightful work, and leaves me wanting to read more in the series of "Wonders of the Word." While starting with Pliny's observations, the most interesting parts of the book for me were the role that Vesuvius played in various Grand Tours taken in the 17th and 18th centuries. The accounts by these travelers are fascinating, as is the role played by the volcano in the development of modern geology. The present situation, reminiscent of that of ancient witless Pompeii, ends the book on a somber note.