By David McCullough

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “Half a century ago this year, Simon & Schuster published my first effort as an author, a book that, I am proud to say, has never gone out of print and that Simon & Schuster, still my publisher, has honored with this anniversary edition. When I think of the circumstances by which the book came to be so long ago, I cannot help but feel more than ever a sense of genuine amazement. The year was 1961. Aset of old photographs lay spread out on a large table before me in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, and I stopped to look. They were, I was told, taken by a photographer who managed to climb over the mountains of western Pennsylvania down into what remained of Johnstown within a day or so after the terrible flood of 1889 hit that city…”

NY. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. 1968. 300p.