Remembering the lessons of the Dust Bowl. We listen back to an interview with Timothy Egan, author of the book, “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.”
Egan's book won the 2006 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2006 Washington State Book Award in History/Biography.
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. 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)
This interview was recorded in 2005.
