Four Days That Shook the World: Earthquakes and Empire Along the Eurasian Frontier

FAIN: FEL-268214-20

Douglas T. Northrop
Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1015)

Completion of a book on the history of natural disasters in Central Eurasia.

I propose to write a book about the seismic and social histories of Central Eurasia. My project uses several major earthquakes—with their attendant drama and social, cultural, political, and economic consequences—to gain a fresh perspective on the region's past. The resulting book is built around four of these traumatic episodes, all located in or near urban centers of the Russo-Soviet imperial periphery: Almaty, Kazakhstan (1887); Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (1948); Tashkent, Uzbekistan (1966); and Spitak, Armenia (1988). These cataclysmic events serve as the spine for a new, sweeping history of the empire, one that brings together colonial, environmental, cultural, and urban history, as well as the history of science.