How to Survive History
How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes
1 of 1 copy available
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.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Awards
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Release date
June 13, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593683934
- File size: 165632 KB
- Duration: 05:45:03
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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April 10, 2023
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.
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