Timothy Egan - The Worst Hard Time (2)

I finish this history of the great Dust Bowl of the 30's. What I learned is that this disaster was man-made. Led by government policy and poor soil mainanence, wheat farmers streamed into the lower High Plains (mainly Oklahoma and Texas) and stripped millions of acres of grass, which the left the ground barren. Winds picked up the loose dirt and wrecked thousands of square miles in 1934-35. Many people fled, chronicled by Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, but many remained, and this book tells their story. It is a heartbreaking story of disaster and survival, endurance and heroism. The ultimate moral is this: don't mess with Mother Nature.