Product DescriptionThe dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, ''the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect'' (New York Times).
In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is ''arguably the best nonfiction book yet'' (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.
What Others Say
The Worst Hard Time
Excellant. I heard about the "Dust Bowl" but never imagined what it really was and how terrible of time in our history. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Edition 001) really opened my eyes. Hearing the stories from people that survived that time makes me fully appreciate how we have it today.
Non-fiction that Reads Like a Novel
What was the worst environmental disaster of the 20th century? Would you believe the over-farming of the southern Great Plains that led to the enormous dust storms of the 1930s? The biggest of these storms on April 14, 1935, which went down in history as "Black Sunday," completely blocked out the sun and contained more tons of dust and dirt than was removed to dig the Panama Canal. All of it airborne - clogging lungs, blinding cattle, burying homesteads, and turning the Great Plains into a lunar crater. Through diary accounts, personal interviews, and newspaper stories, Egan paints a vivid and personal picture of the people and places most affected by this ecological disaster. The book is fascinating - and penetrating. It's hard to imagine why ... Read More
I had no clue
...since I was born in the late 60's yet here in 2008 I wanted to know about the folks that survived during that period of time, how they lived and why it had all happened. Timothy made this real and "touchable" for me. Your heart breaks for these people, it's a very moving tribute. I came away grateful for everything in my life.
Dust to Bust
Through the striated layers of heartbreak that Tim Egan exposes in this chronicle of the '30s Dust Bowl, it's hard not to wonder why. Why did a sizeable population gravitate to America's high plains in the first place? Why did so many stay in the face of crushing catastrophe? Could no one see the folly in ripping up millions of square miles of prairie with only the vaguest sense of how how to transform it into arable farmland? This story is less about natural disaster than Greek tragedy. Not a page goes by without an example of hubris so glaring it makes the burgeoning horror seem inevitable.
Egan weaves together the territory's history and the personal stories of its settlers with grim effect, punctuating a terrible irony. For ... Read More
A healthy reminder of how easy we have it.
Save for the descriptions of dust and dirt, which get a little tiring, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Edition 001) is a great read. His writing style is very readable and his research and understanding of the material is obvious. It is a good lesson for these times we live in. Perhaps we could use some of the wisdom of those times to understand what we need to do to cure our environmental and economic ills.
