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| The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl | 
| Author: Timothy Egan
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $3.99
You Save: $10.96 (73%)
New (46) Collectible (4) from $8.19
Avg. Customer Rating:  176 reviews
Sales Rank: 1287
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0618773479
Dewey Decimal Number: 978.032
EAN: 9780618773473
ASIN: 0618773479
Publication Date: September 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Very Good softcover book.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A Cautionary Tale February 18, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
This finely written history of the Great Plains and the catalysm that consumed them is well worth reading. Tim Egan interviews the last survivors of this dark era and follows their stories from beginning to end. It's a cautionary tale about American greed, short-sighted government policies, and nature's payback for human abuse of the land. Amazing facts are given, particularly about Black Sunday and the massive dust cloud that made its way from the midwest to Chicago and New York City. Only through FDR's intervention was the tide turned, but even today, there are still remnants of the uprooting of the Plains. One wonders what's in store for us as we blindly pursue our lifestyles that depend on oil consumption, global warming, and constant destruction of the environment.
An incredible story - very well told February 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It took me next to no time at all to read this book, and I was sorry when it ran out of pages. Before reading this book I frankly had no idea whatsoever what people in the Dust Bowl went through - what an unbelievably harsh and cruel time it was to be alive under those circumstances. The fact that global economics and simple human greed conspired to play such a large part in the creation of this immense social and ecological disaster should be an eye-opener to those observing similar trends in our own world. Sadly, history is too little studied and even less understood in our world to serve as the warning signal it should. This book is amazing.
 ENGROSSING BOOK, A LITTLE REPETITIVE February 9, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book (audio version) captured my attention. It had an important story to tell about the unbelievable austerity of the dustbowl era. It also had a clear warning for the future of this country both in terms of the dire consequences of rapid depletion of the environment and economic extravagance.
The book did, however, tell the same story a bunch of times.
Makes a wonderful gift for anyone especially the younger generations February 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
After reading this book and remembering the times back then, I bought other copies of it as gifts for family members and friends. I lived through that time in the gemeral area discussed and want the younger generation/s to know more about that almost unbelievable era. We were more fortunate than many as I remember we had a larger variety foods. These were mostly limited to dried pinto beans, dried blackeyed peas, cornbread, oatmeal and milk which our mother brought to a boil before it was used. That cow had been marked for death and a kind farmer failed to kill it as instructed by the government. This was a favor to our family of five children. This allowed us to have hot chocolate when we could scrape together enough money to buy cocoa and sugar. He also allowed us to live in an old house that had been used as a barn for many years. We survived thanks to that very good, kind man. Compared to those discussed in WORST HARD TIME, we were rich indeed.
 Nice read but harsher than a duster on the farmers February 7, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
The strong suit about Egan's book is its nice, flowing style. It is VERY readable, and--like any good reporter--he always keeps his focus on his audience. I also like his approach (used by Ken Burns with his TV specials) of focusing on a few specific individuals to tell the story--such specificity not only keeps the reader's interest, but it brings his points home with force.
Where the book is weaker is on its overall scholarship and its wide use of what is called "presentism," using modern-day standards to judge folks in the past, no matter if they employed different standards or were ignorant of modern-day farming practices. A glaring example of the former is his over-reliance of quotes from early republic sources (trappers, explorers, ranchers) that warned that the Great Plains was unsuitable for farming. His implied point is that "we were warned," and that voices had been raised against farming this land (See especially chapters one and two). The HUGE problem with this sort of analysis is that the very same people had said the same things about the San Joachin and Central Valleys, all of Eastern Oregon and Washington, and virtually ALL of the land between the Cascade Mountains and the Rockies! In other words, explorers from the wet and humid east had no clue what might be done to the land to make it produce (irrigation, etc.), and there are hugely successful dryland wheat regions ALL over the west! So the bare fact that early folks "warned" that such lands could not be farmed says nothing. Egan also doesn't take self-interest enough into account when using these warning themes: in other words, cattlemen had a strong and vested interest in keeping unplowed land just the way it was, it is HIGHLY doubtful that cattle ranchers were altruistic environmental activists more than they were normal, self-interested folks, wanting to preserve their way of life and status quo.
Egan also lumps "precipitation" and "rain" together as synonyms, a gross error in dryland farming. Most if not all dryland wheat in the west depends on snow-melt sinking into the ground in late winter and early spring to nourish the wheat, NOT an even dispensement of "rain" throughout the growing season. On page 266, Egan makes the mistake of saying that "twenty inches of rain or less is simply not enough to raise crops." This is simply false, as there are many areas that raise good crops of wheat on less than twenty inches of precipitation.
Second, Egan is way too tough on the 1930s' farmers, imposing standards on them that they could not possibly have known. Again and again he blames the farmers, and puts words and thoughts into their mouths without sourcing, to the effect that they "should have known better." Really? And just how could or would they have known better? There was no Soil Conservation Service, no County Extension Agents, no Farming Bulletins; these were people who were trying their best to make a living in a very, very tough place. Then, almost as an afterthought, Egan finally quotes the fact-finding commission (268) of the time, which did not blame the farmers because "they lacked both the knowledge and the incentive" to farm the land right. This is too little, too late, but Egan needs to heed the commission's advice: yes, the farming practices of the time were illly suited to the conditions of the Great Plains, and were part of the puzzle that resulted in the Dust Bowl. But the farmers were using practices both that were taught them and what they had used in wetter areas. Egan is way too harsh on them, and holds them to an impossible standard.
That having been said, if one reads this book with caution, as providing some valuable and well-written PARTS of the puzzle, not the WHOLE, the Worst Hard Time is a worthy purchase. It DOES give you excellent and personal insight into the lives of those who lived in a very tough time in a very tough place.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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