Book review: The Worst Hard Time

Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowlis undeniably one of the best, most engrossing, books I’ve read in a long time. If all of history was written this way, I believe more people in our country would know and appreciate the years and events which have shaped this nation. Egan’s book is more than just history. He weaves together an engaging saga of real life, where fact is more compelling than fiction. This is an outstanding book–a ‘must read’.

While Steinbeck wrote of plainsmen who fled the dust storms of the 1930’s in The Grapes of Wrath (Centennial Edition), Egan tells the gripping realities of those who remained. Using their own words from journals and newspapers, their story is haunting and raw. This is the grit and determination which has shaped people of the Great Plains. As one pioneer wrote, “It was not a rain cloud. Nor was it a cloud holding ice pellets. It was not a twiter. It was thick like coarse animal hair; it was alive. People close to it described a feeling of being in a blizzard–a black blizzard, they called it–with an edge like steel wool.”

Natural disasters occur with regularity around the world. Earthquakes, flooding and ice storms are all part of the earth’s cycle. The dustbowl of the 1930’s is different in that it was a completely man-made natural disaster. As ecological stewardship gains in popularity in the 21st century, this book recalls the same pursuit during the dirty ’30s. As politicians today debate the merits of a number of government programs in light of a struggling economy, Egan brings to life the people and circumstances behind several of Franklin Roosevelt’s policies during his presidency.

The end of the book references a film created in 1936, describing the erosion of both soil and spirits in the Great Plains. The film, The Plow That Broke the Plains, was inducted in 1999 to the National Film Registry of “artistically, culturally, and socially significant” films. The first half of the film is available online at http://www.archive.org/details/PlowThatBrokethePlains1.