20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A most essential book for these times, July 11, 2002
This review is from: Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (Galaxy Books) (Paperback)
As most persons are aware, these are times of climatic change, with the West becoming warmer and drier. These changes are episodic, but mankind's response to them is not so predictable. Professor Worster's excellent coverage of the Dust Bowl, one of the greatest agricultural and ecological calamities in history, shows that, with a little foresight and honest recognition of the limitations of technology, much of the harm caused by shifting climate can be prevented. In that respect, it is a hopeful text.
Professor Worster, however, views history from a Marxist standpoint, a trait that colors some of his conclusions. While I agree with him that land is frequently viewed by the shortsighted as a commodity to be used and discarded, I feel that the lessons of the Dust Bowl have resulted in safer, drought-resistant patterns of crop farming. However, as Worster adroitly points out, the shifting in agricultural practices in the Southern plains is accompanied by a wasteful use of available underground water, raising a peril of the Dust Bowl's return. So have we really learned anything? Time will tell, and not very long from now.
So far as Professor Worster addresses the socio-economic causes of the reckless destruction of the short-grass prairie ecosystem for quick profit, his discussion is masterful His organization of topics and chronology is excellent, and the reader will not soon forget the horror of living with the dust. The photos of dust storms and their effect are almost nightmarish.
Regardless of one's irritation at the myopia of those who try to farm mrginal land, his is a sympathetic portrait as well, waxing almost lyrical in his discussions of the effects of crop failures on the local populace. The book is copiously reserched and peopled with personal anecdotes of those who lived through the "Dirty Thirties". This narrative includes not only the local citizenry, but contains numerous passages about governmental attempts to allay the crisis.
I recommend this book very highly. I think anyone who likes history, who is concerned about the effects of climatic change, or both, ought to read this book very carefully. It should be an essential part of anyone's library.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite book about the Dust Bowl, October 16, 2007
This review is from: Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (Galaxy Books) (Paperback)
Looking at the cover, this book seems as if it's going to be something really academic--and it is scholarly and knowledgeable--but it's never academic in the bad sense, in the boring sense.
I read this right after reading Timothy Egan's "The Worst Hard Time," and found this book's descriptions of the devastation caused by the 1930s Dust Bowl to be much more vivid and gripping, this book's facts to be much quirkier and more interesting, and this book's scope to feel much broader and more widely felt. With "The Worst Hard Time," I got the idea that the whole thing really only affected a handful of counties, which I knew was wrong, but with this book there was no denying just how epic the whole ordeal was.
I loved this book (despite its author's amusing tendency to quote Marx) and consider it to be perhaps the very best book I've read about the Dust Bowl--and I've read a few of them. You should read it, for sure.
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Family from Center of Dust Bowl, February 24, 2000
This review is from: Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (Galaxy Books) (Paperback)
Our family has farmed in the panhandle of Oklahoma for almost 100 years. We still farm there, and in Texhoma (North Texas) both in the center of the dust bowl. My mother grew up there and was always telling us how severe it was and we (as her children) didn't really believe that it could be as bad as she said. However, since that time, we have reviewed the book, and seen a video of actual motion pictures of that period, - in the very area that was the subject of the book. Everything we have seen, and heard from all of our relatives who lived there at this time appear to be in total agreement with the book.
We still farm there and it seems that the cyclical weathern pattern could be developing for a reoccurance of the same pattern, especially since the water table used for irrigation (so important in that part of the U.S., is decreasing yearly. Randy Miller
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