The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

The 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.

• The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America
• The Children's Blizzard
• Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima (P.S.)
• Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend
• Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
• American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity
• The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (Revised and Enlarged Edition)
• American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare
• The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero
• People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Walgreen Foundation Lectures)