Simon Winchester was an oil geologist before becoming one of Britain’s leading journalists (he covered Watergate, Jonestown, and the Falklands War) and then a historian. His new book is A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. He is also the author of The Professor and the Madman, about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and The Fracture Zone, which recounts his journey from Austria to Turkey during the 1999 Kosovo Crisis. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is about the Javanese volcano eruption of 1883.
Simon Winchester appears in the following:
How the Pacific Ocean Will Shape the Future
Friday, October 30, 2015
Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, who United the Nation
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Simon Winchester explains how America became “one nation, indivisible.” What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? His book The Men Who United the States: Explorers, Inventors, Eccentrics and Mavericks, and the Creation of One Nation, Indivisible explores this question, and follows America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, and builders who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States.
Simon Winchester on Living with Natural Disaster
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Man lives on the earth with geological consent, writes Simon Winchester, author of "Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories." Winchester has written extensively about geology and weighs in on the Japan quake and whether we are prepared for disaster here in the United States. He says that the earth is littered with the ruins of cities built in precarious locations and further, that it is the instability of the planet which has created some of its most beautiful features (and most coveted property).
The Atlantic Ocean
Monday, January 03, 2011
Simon Winchester gives an account of the history, geography, science, and cultural influence of the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean tells the story of this great body of water and it’s connection to the Vikings, the Irish, the Chinese, Christopher Columbus, the Portuguese and Spanish.
What Compels Us to Predict an Unknowable Future?
Friday, December 31, 2010
Anticipating the future is a classic (and possibly uniquely) human pastime. For as long as humans have kept records of the past, we have also tried to predict our future...and in so doing, control our destiny. Why do we cling to these predictions? The end of the world, the end of humanity, even our future fortunes…why do we anticipate so much?
Finding the 'Vast Ocean of a Million Stories' in the Atlantic
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Try to imagine the world two hundred million years ago, when the earth's original landmass began to break apart into the continents that we know today. That moment made way for the mighty Atlantic ocean.
Author, geologist and journalist Simon Winchester fell in love with the Atlantic when he made his first trans-Atlantic voyage in the early 1960s. That voyage inspired his latest book: "Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories."
The Man Who Loved China
Friday, November 28, 2008
Remakes
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Special Guest: Simon Winchester
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Kurt Andersen talks with journalist, historian, and geologist Simon Winchester about disasters — why they happen and what happens afterward. They’ll look at the aftermath of the earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco 99 years ago. Winchester explains why he thinks New Orleans should not be rebuilt ...
Recover, Rebuild, Didion
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Kurt Andersen talks with writer Simon Winchester about how cities recover from disaster. They’ll discuss the earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco in 1906, and how the city rebuilt. We’ll look at the cultural life of Sarajevo, ten years after the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian War. And ...