Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In 1902, geologist Thomas Jagger traveled to Martinique to view the devastation wrought by Mount Pelée. Stunned by what he found there, he determined to dedicate his life to solving volcanoes many mysteries. What followed were decades of travel to places such as Italy, Alaska, Japan, and most significantly Hawaii, as he studied eruptions and met with other scientists who, like him, were cobbling together a new field of science based on their observations and shared knowledge. In this vividly written exploration of Jagger's life and work, Dvorak (Earthquake Storms, 2014) covers not only the early years of volcanology but also dives into what propelled Jagger to fight so hard to learn more about volcanoes and the price he paid a failed marriage and distant children to gain that knowledge. After ultimately meeting a woman who shared his passion, fighting to establish the science station at Kilauea, and discovering much of what we know about volcanic activity, Jagger was, sadly, forgotten. Dvorak brings him to life in a richly researched narrative as thrilling as his topic, creating the sort of popular science history that flies off the shelves.--Mondor, Colleen Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this fine combination of science, history, and biography, geophysicist Dvorak (Earthquake Storms) turns his attention to Thomas Jaggar, a pioneer in the field of volcanology. Jaggar, the son of an Episcopal bishop, chose to dedicate himself to the "missionary field" of volcano studies after participating in the relief efforts for the eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique in 1902, when he was a young geology instructor at Harvard. He went on to found the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory at Kilauea and study volcanoes and earthquakes in Hawaii, Alaska, and elsewhere. Jaggar is also responsible for numerous firsts, including the first ascent of the Pavlof volcano in Alaska, the first tsunami prediction, and (with a coworker) the construction of the "world's first durable amphibious vehicle," which became the model for the DUKW landing craft used by U.S. forces in WWII. Dvorak sketches the lives of Jaggar's numerous colleagues and contributors to the field, chief among them his second wife, Isabel Maydwell. Dvorak delights in describing to readers the complete nonchalance with which Jaggar and Maydwell approached and worked around lava, and brief passages on the goddess Pele and WWII's effects on Jaggar's Japanese-American colleagues round out this fine work. Agent: Laura Wood, Fine Print Literary. (Dec.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A United States Geological Survey scientist returns with a rich account of one of his predecessors: Thomas Jaggar (1871-1953), a somewhat forgotten pioneer in volcanology. Dvorak (Earthquake Storms: The Fascinating History and Volatile Future of the San Andreas Fault, 2015), who now operates the telescope at Mauna Kea in Hawaii, a site where Jaggar spent some enormously productive years, brings not just a sharp understanding of the scientific issues involved, but also a humanist's heart. We see him as a flawed human being but a ferociously dedicated researcher, a fearless adventurer (who ran toward eruptions), and a visionary. The author begins with Jaggar's Cincinnati boyhood in the home of an important local clergyman, then commences his swift, engaging accounts of Jaggar's numerous visits to remote (and dangerous) sites, travels that make the word peripatetic seem insufficient. Alaska, Japan, the Caribbean, Hawaiithese are a few of the places he traveled to understand what fascinated him the most: the power in the Earth. Dvorak pauses occasionally to chronicle Jaggar's personal life (which became somewhat scandalous), but these stories, though important, are not his focus. He seeks to teach readers about volcanologyand does so in terms that laypeople can comprehendand he makes us feel the excitement, the fear, and the intense heat of a lava flow. We get some Hawaiian history, as well, with an especially interesting section about the origin of the goddess Pele and how many Hawaiians were quick to credit or blame her for the vagaries of the volcanoes. Occasionally, Dvorak steps into the story to add some information about one of his own related experiences, no more affectingly so than when he visited the Japanese relatives of one of Jaggar's Hawaiian assistants, a family rounded up during the World War II internment-camp period. First-rate reporting and erudition underlie this successful effort to re-establish the reputation of an indispensable scientist. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
