In 1906, San Francisco was destroyed not by the terrible earthquake of April 18, but by the fires that ensued. Yet journalists and historians then-and now-have been quick to point out the speed and supposed sloppiness with which architects and engineers rebuild San Francisco after every major earthquake. The conventional wisdom holds that corruption prevented proper seismic safety in new buildings. But those presumptions are far too sweeping, according to architecture and earthquake scholar Stephen Tobriner. In fact, for the past one hundred and fifty years, architects and engineers have quietly been learning from each quake and designing newer models of earthquake-resistant building techniques and applying them in an ongoing effort to save San Francisco.