HUMN 4325 - FROZEN! The Climate Crisis of 1816 and Its Lessons for Today

Discusses the communication of news in the 18th century and how the disaster was perceived by editors and readers in the Netherlands.

An appreciation by Julian Barnes of Voltaire's most famous work..

This encyclopedia entry reveals the state of knowledge in the mid-18th century regarding the causation of earthquakes.

An attempt to find the cause of earthquakes in natural phenomea.

This article explores the disagreement between Voltaire and Rousseau on the meaning of the Lisbon earthquake.

The author of this article contends that the publication of eyewitness accounts of 18th-century earthquakes was indispensable to the development of seismology.

Psychologist Michael McCullough tells how the Lisbon earthquake marked the beginning of international humanitarian aid following disasters.

This book by the Rev. Thomas Hunter provides a list of earthquakes that occurred in Britain and elsewhere, and contains a contemporary account of the Lisbon quake.

This analysis of the disaster finds that fire, not earthquake, was responsible for most of the building losses, and that the tsunamis mostly affected the western and central parts of the city.

This compilation of eyewitness reports shows that the first tsunami reached cities in southwestern Portugal only 30 minutes after the earthquake.

This scientific essay on the probable causes of earthquakes was written in response to the Great New England Earthquake of November 26, 1755.

A Smithsonian Institution documentary on the Great Earthquake (44 min).

Physician and cleric William Stukely here attempted to strike a balance between science and religion. He theorized that earthquakes were caused by subterranean electrical currents directed by a Divine hand to warn and punish sinners.

The author interprets the earthquake as a divine judgement upon the degeneracy of Lisbon's inhabitants.

On the development of a cage-like wooden truss system that was employed in the rebuilding of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake.

Prof. Ryan Nichols sees the 18th-century Protestant interpretation of the Lisbon earthquake as that of a divine judgement upon an out-group (Roman Catholics).

This poem was an attack on both the optimism of Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man" (1734) and its acceptance of natural disasters as evidence of God's will. Voltaire would expand upon the themes of this poem in his satire, 'Candide' (1756).