Tragedies of American History: 13 Stories of Human Error and Natural Disaster

by Ace Collins

A century of great American disaster stories, from the Johnstown Flood of 1889 to America's first commercial jet crash. In this gripping collection of tragic moments from our nation's past, Ace Collins tells the gripping real-life tales of men, women, and children trapped in situations beyond their control. Culled from documents, interviews with key participants, and news stories of the day, Tragedies of American History   chronicles the harrowing human drama of individuals facing life at its most extreme.

Infused with danger and immediacy, these stories place readers in the middle of harrowing circumstances as they unfold. Putting a human face on these tragic events, Collins offers keen insights into people's thoughts, fears, and emotions as they battle against the forces of nature and human error.

From the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 to the Coconut Grove Fire of '42 . . . from the Great Nashville Train Wreck of 1918 to 1953's Waco Tornado, here are the famous as well as the forgotten events that illustrate our will to survive in the face of certain doom.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 27, 2003

About the author

Citing his Arkansas heritage, Christy Award winner Ace Collins defines himself as a storyteller. In that capacity, Collins has authored more than eighty books for 25 different publishers that have sold more than 2.5 million copies. His catalog includes novels, biographies, children’s works as well as books on history, culture and faith. He has also been the featured speaker at the National Archives Distinguished Lecture Series, hosted a television special, been featured on every network morning TV show and does college basketball play-by-play. He is married to Kathy Collins, Chair of the Education Department at Ouachita Baptist University, and the couple has two grown sons. Collins lives in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Reviews

[Sara]

I couldn't put this down. It was sensationalistic and tugged at the heart strings, but I knew so little about these tragedies. I especially liked the chapter on The Cocoanut Grove fire. Wow. So glad we have fire codes now. The Chicago school fire was also horrifying to read about.

[Sandeep]

I definitely learned quite a bit about less well known tragedies in American history spanning the mid 1800s to mid 1900s. Think Katrina but less well publicized. The gamut ranges from natural disasters to devastating fires to sinking ships and airplane crashes. What irked me the most, is the author tries to be a bit sensationalist and portrays the feelings and thoughts of victims who subsequently perish in these disasters. He has no way of knowing what they thought or felt, so why project? I think the stories are compelling just as they are. The book could also have benefited from talking about lessons learned from these tragedies. While Collins does this in one or two instances, it’d have been good to learn about how fire codes changed or flood warning and evacuation procedures have been upgraded. Also found quite a few typos and grammatical mistakes.

Overall worth a read as you’ll definitely learn about these less well known tragedies.

[Judy]

This collection of short stories about little known tragedies was an interesting read. I was familiar with a couple of the incidents, but this shed more light on them. The book comes across as well-researched and is highly readable. Some of the stories had an almost sensationalist telling which was not entirely appropriate for such dense and horrific events. A couple of stories had us learning about the exact thoughts and actions of people who succumbed to the tragedies, meaning they were made up. Whoopsie. The tales of human error were more frightening in my opinion because they were often caused by greed and/or negligence and that hasn't changed one bit in all these years.

[Jeannie]

There wasn't a story in this book that wasn't interesting. I could hardly put it down and couldn't wait to see what the next story was about. So many of these I had never heard of, nearly all were from before my time which was quite refreshing cause I sure didn't want to read about recent disasters that have saturated our news. This author not only has his facts down but wrote in such an easy going manner that I felt I knew many of these people, he added personal details to the people in each story. I would recommend this to history buffs and anyone interested in storms and human tragedy.

[Lizz]

While it was definitely an engaging read, the author chose to display one of my biggest pet peeves of nonfiction: when authors attribute thoughts to individuals that they have no way of verifying. In every story, the author chose to talk about what an individual who was seconds from death was thinking about. It drove me bonkers! Nevertheless, each story selected was fascinating, and I'll certainly be looking for more information. Just hopefully not via undocumented daydreams from dead people.

[ADD]

Some I have never heard before this book. Others I had; however, all were tragic tales. Don't read this late at night if you frequently reprocess late night reading into your dreams. Some of it is quite graphic.

[Stephanie]

The author did a great job of bringing the details of long ago people and events to life.A vivid and engaging read.