The Book Prize Index

This Gulf of Fire: The Destruction of Lisbon, or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason

Mark Molesky

"On All Saints Day of 1755, the tremors from a magnitude 8.5 earthquake swept furiously from its epicenter in the Atlantic Ocean toward the Iberian Peninsula. Nowhere was it felt more than in Lisbon, then the thriving capital of a great global empire. In a few minutes most of Lisbon was destroyed--but that was only the beginning. A tsunami swept away most of the ruined coast along the Tagus River and carried untold souls out to sea. When fire broke out across the city, the surviving Lisboetas were subject to a firestorm reaching temperatures over 1,832 degrees.

HistoryWorld History · medium confidenceWorld History81 signalsLlm Classifier: World History -> World HistoryKeyword Classifier: Nature & Environment -> Nature & EnvironmentTopic Classifier: Climate, Weather & Disaster -> Nature & EnvironmentClimate, Weather & DisasterTravel, Exploration & PlaceNatural History & Animals

Award History

0 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History2015FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    • Lisbon90%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Tagus River60%
    • Atlantic Ocean42%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    40 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 68%.