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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl: Library Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Timothy Egan
Creator: Patrick Lawlor
Publisher: Playaway
Category: Book
Buy New: $59.99
Rating:  196 reviews
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 1.2
ISBN: 1605146226
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9781605146225
ASIN: 1605146226
Publication Date: May 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 7 to 12 days
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Product Description
"The Worst Hard Time is an epic story of blind hope and endurance almost beyond belief; it is also, as Tim Egan has told it, a riveting tale of bumptious charlatans, conmen, and tricksters, environmental arrogance and hubris, political chicanery, and a ruinous ignorance of nature's ways. Egan has reached across the generations and brought us the people who played out the drama in this devastated land, and uses their voices to tell the story as well as it could ever be told."
? Marq de Villiers, author of Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource
The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod homes to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out. He follows their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure, and the deaths of loved ones. Drawing on the voices of those who stayed and survived?those who, now in their eighties and nineties, will soon carry their memories to the grave?Egan tells a story of endurance and heroism against the backdrop of the Great Depression.
As only great history can, Egan's book captures the very voice of the times: its grit, pathos, and abiding courage. Combining the human drama of Isaac's Storm with the sweep of The American People in the Great Depression, The Worst Hard Time is a lasting and important work of American history.
Timothy Egan is a national enterprise reporter for the New York Times. He is the author of four books and the recipient of several awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
"As one who, as a young reporter, survived and reported on the great Dust Bowl disaster, I recommend this book as a dramatic, exciting, and accurate account of that incredible and deadly phenomenon. This is can't-put-it-down history." ?Walter Cronkite
"The Worst Hard Time is wonderful: ribbed like surf, and battering us with a national epic that ranks second only to the Revolution and the Civil War. Egan knows this and convincingly claims recognition for his subject?as we as a country finally accomplished, first with Lewis and Clark, and then for 'the greatest generation,' many of whose members of course were also survivors of the hardships of the Great Depression. This is a banner, heartfelt but informative book, full of energy, research, and compassion." ?Edward Hoagland, author of Compass Points: How I Lived
"Here's a terrific true story?who could put it down? Egan humanizes Dust Bowl history by telling the vivid stories of the families who stayed behind. One loves the people and admires Egan's vigor and sympathy." ?Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
"The American West got lucky when Tim Egan focused his acute powers of observation on its past and present. Egan's remarkable combination of clear analysis and warm empathy anchors his portrait of the women and men who held on to their places?and held on to their souls?through the nearly unimaginable miseries of the Dust Bowl. This book provides the finest mental exercise for people wanting to deepen, broaden, and strengthen their thinking about the relationship of human beings to this earth." ?Patricia N. Limerick, author of The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West
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| Customer Reviews: Read 191 more reviews...
 Leather bound dictionary January 6, 2009
This item makes a nice graduation gift - particularly for the high school graduate going on to college. Because it is leather bound, it can be imprinted with the recipients name. Most book stores can advise you where imprinting is available.
Captivating and prophetic January 4, 2009
Seldom has an author brought forth a moment in time with such vivid detail, solid research, and compassion. The Dust Bowl is brought back to life in Mr. Egan's amazing hands. Drawing the reader back to dreadful time in Amerixan history that has much to teach the readers of 2009.
The Worst Hard Time December 31, 2008
The Worst Hard Time reveals the overwhelming challenges of the first immigrants who came to the Great American Desert to carve out a life. The descriptive quality of the text draws the reader into the horrendous conditions the settlers faced in their quest to survive. An informative story for any reader interested in the history of America.
 Shows how little the people who run this country care December 24, 2008
Facing the biggest crisis since the Great Depression, this book should serve as a warning to us about how little those who run this country care for the lives of working people, farmers, and entire regions of the country. A whole region of the country was allowed to sink into total poverty, death, and destruction. Towns were abandoned, farmersm on what had been the richest lands in the world a few years previous, starved to death. As a teacher I hear other teachers tell me that with public jobs we are immune to the unemployment that is wracking the US now, but in this book we will read of teachers who were not paid for years, but kept on teaching until they were suffering from malnutrition.
This is a book we all need to read because like in the 1930s Dust Bowl, we have come to a disaster from a busted capitalist speculative bubble that is destroying millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of lives across the globe. This book paints the degree of suffering not nature, but capitalist greed and the indifference of those with the wealth and power to help carried out.
In saying this, as a writer, I enjoyed the prose. He gives the real story of people and families going through this period of history. He shows that despite the depths of the disaster and the inability of government to do anything about it, people, cowboys and farmers, teachers and storekeepers faced the dust bowl disaster with strength, courage, love, and solidarity
Exceptional read December 14, 2008
Remarkable, must read. Timothy Egan is superb. The Worst Hard Time should be read by ALL.
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