How to survive history : how to outrun a Tyrannosaurus, escape Pompeii, get off the Titanic, and survive the rest of history's deadliest catastrophes

How to survive history How to outrun a Tyrannosaurus, escape Pompeii, get off the Titanic, and survive the rest of history's deadliest catastrophes

Cody Cassidy

Book - 2023

"History is the most dangerous place on earth. From dinosaurs the size of locomotives to meteors big enough to sterilize the planet, from famines to pandemics, from tornadoes to the Chicxulub asteroid, the odds of human survival are slim but not zero-at least, not if you know where to go and what to do. In each chapter of How to Survive History, Cody Cassidy explores how to survive one of history's greatest threats: getting eaten by dinosaurs, being destroyed by the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, succumbing to the lava flows of Pompeii, being devoured by the Donner Party, drowning during the sinking of the Titanic, falling prey to the Black Death, and more. Using hindsight and modern science to estimate everything from how... fast you'd need to run to outpace a T. rex to the advantages of different body types in surviving the Donner Party tragedy, Cassidy gives you a detailed battle plan for survival, helping you learn about the era at the same time. History may be the most dangerous place on earth, but that doesn't mean you can't visit. You can, and you should. And with a copy of How to Survive History in your back pocket, you just might make it out alive"--

Saved in:
Place a Hold Save to List Email this

2nd Floor Show me where

904/Cassidy
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 904/Cassidy Checked In
Subjects
Disasters > History.
Survival.
History > Miscellanea.
HISTORY / World.
Disasters.
History.
Trivia and miscellanea.
Genres
History
Trivia and miscellanea
Published
[New York, NY] : Penguin Books [2023]
Language
English
Main Author
Cody Cassidy (author)
Physical Description
xii, 212 pages : illustrations, maps, 22 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780143136408
  • Introduction
  • How to Survive …
  • The Dinosaur Age
  • The Chicxulub Asteroid
  • The Ice Age
  • Ancient Egypt
  • Pompeii
  • The Sack of Rome
  • The Darkest Year of the Dark Ages
  • The Black Death
  • The Fall of Constantinople
  • The First Circumnavigation
  • A Voyage with Blackbeard
  • The Donner Party
  • The 1906 Earthquake
  • The Sinking of the Titanic
  • The Worst Tornado in American History
  • Acknowledgments
  • Resources and Further Reading
Review by Booklist Review

If you found yourself face-to-face with a T. rex, what would you do? Thankfully, Cassidy (And Then You're Dead, 2017) has the answer to this and many more of life's most burning and seemingly unanswerable questions. How to Survive History is a highly entertaining look at such questions as how to escape Pompeii the day Mt. Vesuvius erupts, how to hunt a mammoth and survive, and how to build the Great Pyramids and live to tell the tale, all with the framing of the reader being a curious time traveler checking out some of history's most well-known yet deadly moments. Each question posed by the author is answered with a combination of science, math, historical record, and ingenuity, along with a healthy dose of humor. Graphs, graphics, and other images make fun, invaluable additions to the text. Not only will this be perfect for those interested in history, humor, and popular science, its highly conversational tone and handy graphs and images will greatly appeal to teen readers.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Cassidy follows up Who Ate the First Oyster? with an insightful and entertaining look at 15 of the most catastrophic events in world history. From the struggle between predator and prey in the age of dinosaurs to the 1925 tristate tornado, which "cut a mile-wide gash through southern Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and killed at least 695 people," Cassidy provides detailed accounts of the events leading up to each catastrophe and sound advice on how best they could have survived them. Conscripted laborers who built the Great Pyramid of Giza suffered from extreme arthritis and died at an average age of 35, Cassidy reveals, but those who sought a doctor's care for anything but "traumatic bone injuries" often regretted it: treatments included "broths of dead flies and cooked mice." Sheltering in place during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius was a bad idea (better to have fled north on the road to Naples), but members of the Donner Party who stuck to their cabins and "did nothing at all" improved their odds of survival by lowering their metabolism (overcoming the "social taboo" of cannibalism also helped). A crisp blend of humor, history, and science, this is a crowd pleaser. (June)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Similar Items