Jake Page does a very good job of detailing the history of the 1811/1812 New Madrid, Missouri earthquakes. While the book doesn't spend a whole lot of time on contemporaneous accounts of the quake, it does delve into the history of both seismology and seismologists. An interesting amount of space is given to those who have (erroneously) tried to predict major earthquakes and the their inevitable comeuppances. After Winchester's The Map That Changed the World, this is another good book on the natural sciences. A quick and informative read. ( )