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| Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 | 
| Author: Stephen Puleo
Publisher: Beacon Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $4.00
You Save: $11.00 (73%)
New (32) from $8.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 7803
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 273
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 0807050210
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.11
UPC: 046442050210
EAN: 9780807050217
ASIN: 0807050210
Publication Date: September 16, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Dark Tide is the definitive account of America's most fascinating and surreal disaster." ?John Marr, San Francisco Bay Guardian
Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled at thirty-five miles an hour. Dark Tide tells the compelling story of this man-made disaster that claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals and caused widespread destruction.
Dark Tide has been selected as a "town-wide reading book" for five Massachusetts communities including Holliston, Mass.
"Narrated with gusto . . . [Puleo's] enthusiasm for a little-known catastrophe is infectious." ?The New Yorker
"Compelling . . . Puleo has done justice to a gripping historical story." ?Ralph Ranalli, Boston Globe
"Thoroughly researched, the volume weaves together the stories of the people and families affected by the disaster . . . The cleanup lasted months, the lawsuits years, the fearful memories a lifetime." ?Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
"Giving a human face to tragedy is part of the brilliance of Stephen Puleo's Dark Tide . . . Until they were given voice in this book, the characters who drove the story were forgotten." ?Caroline Leavitt, Boston Sunday Globe
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| Customer Reviews: Read 27 more reviews...
 well written and worth reading November 20, 2008
The book holds your interest and describes a little known disaster which happened in Boston. If you like nonfiction and are not looking for facts in bullet format this is a book you may enjoy.
 Not for Fiction-Phobes September 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
First of all, I have to give the author credit for writing about a little-known tragedy. I had never heard of the Boston Molasses Flood before I encountered this book.
As a refugee from fiction, however, I can't give him credit for the way he's written this. These days I read only nonfiction because I am sick of fiction's endless recitation of physical minutiae, so when this book begins with a melodramatic, detailed and un-footnoted re-telling of somebody's dream, and then moves on in the first chapter to unsupported assertions about the movements of various bodily parts of someone who is several years removed from the topic of the book ("Shivering, he cursed the wind as it sliced through his topcoat and into his chest, and flexed his aching fingers inside his thin cloth gloves" -- CITE?) -- at that point I throw the book across the room. Then I go retrieve it and force myself to read on in the hope that it will get more interesting. It doesn't.
I didn't finish the book. Life's too short. There are historical disaster/adventure books out there that leave me in awe of the author's organizing intelligence and narrative prowess; this isn't one of them.
Very interesting book January 31, 2008
A friend loaned me this book after she read it for her book club.
Dark Tide was an excellent book. I really enjoyed the connection of the tragedy to the political enviroment of the day. I also enjoyed the fact that the attorney for the plaintiffs was a graduate of Williams College, a fine Massachusetts College and my son's alma mater. The only part of the book that was unsatisfying to me was the long period of time it took the judge to write his decision, and the eternity it took for the poor victims to actually receive compensation.
 A Childhood Story Comes to Life December 7, 2007
Growing up outside of Boston, my father told me about the molasses flood many, many times. It was a story passed down to him from my grandfather, an immigrant from Greece who arrived in Boston 9 years before the tank exploded. I always wondered about this tragedy, and this book brings it into full focus. It is well written and keeps the reader interested. I highly recommend this book.
Look the Other Way for Profit -- It is History October 30, 2007
Enjoyed reading "Dark Tide" because the author did a better than fair job of tying in the pieces so to speak, placing the incident in historical context that stretched across continents and many generations. All too often, safety and caution were thrown to the winds when it looked like profit might suffer from it. Usually, when we look at incidents like this the profit was eventually lost and many lives suffered. Can we call this old practice? No, just look at the product recall lists and try to figure in what is missed.
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