Yokohama Burning

By Joshua Hammer

Subjects: Japan, environmental conditions, Earthquakes, New York Times reviewed, Kanto Earthquake, Japan, 1923

Description: Yokohama Burning is the story of the worst natural disaster of the twentieth century: the earthquakes, fires, and tsunamis of September 1923 that destroyed Yokohama and most of Tokyo and killed 140,000 people during two days of horror. Piecing together a minute-by-minute account, journalist Joshua Hammer re-creates harrowing scenes of death, escape, and rescue. He also places the tumultuous events in the context of history and demonstrates how they set Japan on a path to even greater tragedy: the massive, American-led relief effort seemed to promise a bright new era in U.S.-Japanese relations, but, Hammer asserts, the calamity led in fact to a hardening of racist attitudes in both Japan and the United States, and drove Japan into the hands of radical militarists with imperial ambitions. - Publisher.